


Honey, Make This Easy

by magnolia_9



Category: The Walking Dead & Related Fandoms, The Walking Dead (Comics), The Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - No Zombie Apocalypse, Angst and Fluff and Smut, Explicit Sexual Content, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, canon-typical violence in later chapters
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-08
Updated: 2018-08-26
Packaged: 2018-10-29 08:47:08
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 10
Words: 89,396
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10850526
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/magnolia_9/pseuds/magnolia_9
Summary: Rick Grimes has more problems that require fixing than just his broken-down car. Lucky for him, he meets a beguiling stranger who is prepared to rise to the challenge.





	1. You Know Better, Babe

**Author's Note:**

> Sheer Regan indulgence! Like eating a cupcake and washing it down with a chocolate milkshake. Title is from Hozier’s “It Will Come Back,” an excellent jam for this pairing. Give it a listen!

Negan took a lazy swallow from the can of beer in his hand, leaning back in the cozy, battered old leather chair and stretching his long legs out onto the desk in front of him. He was in the manager’s office of the garage he worked at - as a mechanic. He was not the manager; this was not his office or his desk or his chair. Or his beer. But the big man was out, and business was slow, so Negan decided to help himself to the relative luxury.

The door swung open, and the office’s rightful owner stood in the entrance, blinking at him. His surprise faded to exasperation, which in turn faded to amusement as he broke into a chuckle. He scratched the grey hair that spilled out from his worn cap. “Seriously, kid? You even gonna pretend to fucking work every now and again?”

Negan grinned at him, tipping the warm can of beer - the one he had swiped from Bud’s not-so-secret stash - at him in a toast. “Nothin’ out there for me to do, Bud. Thought I’d go over the books.” He indicated the scattered binders on the desk with an unrepentant smirk. Not a single one was actually open - they were currently serving to prop up his grimy boots.

Bud’s glare was as resigned as it was irritated. “You’re a real stand-up employee, kid.” He jerked a thumb over his shoulder. “Well, they just towed one in, so step to it. Junker looks like it’s on its last goddamn legs.”

Negan groaned before finishing the beer with a gulp. He crushed the can and let it fall to Bud’s desk carelessly. “They’re all on their last goddamn legs by the time they fucking turn up in here.”

“Try not to be a dick for once,” Bud said as he strolled passed him, and Negan paused just at the door, shooting him a look of mock-offense.

He laid a gloved hand on his own chest. “ _Me?_ _This_ guy? The fuck are you even talking about?” He walked away with a low chuckle, leaving the office and stepping into the large, noisy, fume-filled garage. The late afternoon light turned the space a warm golden-orange, reflecting off all the metal to produce a soft, lovely glow at odds with the rough surroundings. He saw it immediately, in the far left corner - one _hell_ of an old-ass Ford with chipped paint and a general air of exhaustion. There was a man leaning against the car with his arms folded, facing away and giving off a similar air of exhaustion. As Negan approached, he appreciatively took in the sight of the lean line of his body, clothed in jeans that clung to a very attractive backside. _Oh, hell yes_. “Hey, there,” he called out when he was a few feet away.

The man spun to face him, and he was momentarily arrested by the sight. _Jesus_ , he was good-looking, with some of the bluest eyes he had ever seen. That was his first thought; his second was that the eyes were anxious and set in shadows so dark they were nearly purple. The man held out his hand, and he took it with a winning smile. “Hi, I’m Rick. Rick Grimes. It, uh…” he trailed off, gesturing towards the car. “It started smokin’ on the road and just…stopped. I know it’s an old car, but it’s never done anythin’ like _that_ before.”

“Rick Grimes, you wouldn’t believe how many people end up in here with the same fucking story,” Negan replied, cocking his head and flashing him an amused grin. The man gave a faint, rueful smile in response, forehead furrowing slightly. “But usually we can help ‘em get back on the road before long,” Negan added softly, taking in the man’s drawn expression.

He blew out a sigh, and his eyes filled with a tentative hope. “I sure hope so, mister.”

Negan breathed a wry laugh at that - _mister_. He was rarely the recipient of good manners, his own being so sorely lacking. “Call me Negan, Rick Grimes. Pop the hood for me.” The man bent into the driver’s side to fumble for the hood release under the dash, and Negan took the opportunity to brazenly admire the sight of his ass in the air. He made a mental note to buy Bud a new case of beer. There was a soft click of the hood releasing, and the other man straightened and turned. He caught Negan’s sly smirk and blinked at him, looking confused.

 _Try not to be a dick_ , Bud had said, and he supposed that should extend to the mental groping he had just indulged in, but could he be blamed for taking advantage of an opportunity that just _presented_ itself? The other man’s apparently innocent befuddlement was the icing on the cake. Negan held the puzzled gaze for a moment, passing his tongue over his lip, before he turned and made his way to the front of the car. He gazed into the exposed viscera of the machine, frowning. It certainly smelled like something had gone very wrong - the acrid scent of smoke rose up to greet him immediately as he drew close, and he pulled the red bandana at his neck up over his nose as he bent towards the engine.

“How’s it look?” Rick asked hesitantly.

“Well, I’ll have to get in there a bit before I can tell you.” Negan looked at him, considering, as he let the bandana fall from his face. The man had an accent from at least two states to the south. “Far from home, Rick?” He reached to retrieve a wrench from a nearby table.

“Yeah. Yeah, I am. I came up from Georgia.”

“Georgia? Shit, how long you been on the road? No offense, but you look dead on your fuckin’ feet.”

The other man smiled faintly at that and looked down. “Yeah. I’ll bet I do. I’ve been drivin’ since this mornin’. Just about eight hours.” He hesitated, passing a hand over his forehead. “I had a feeling it was gonna be too much for an old car,” he sighed.

Negan clicked his tongue and glanced up, shooting a smile at him. “You let me worry about that. What brings a good Southern boy such as yourself this close to the Mason-Dixon line?”

“I’m picking my kids up from their grandparents,” he answered softly. “They’ve been stayin’ there for the summer.”

Negan grunted as he twisted at a stubborn bolt. “Their mama up there with ‘em?” he asked casually. He had almost immediately noted the absence of a ring on the left hand, so the question was sheer pretense.

“Their mama’s dead,” Rick answered after a long moment. Negan jerked his head to stare at him. He was still leaning against the side of the car - more slumped against it, really - with his arms crossed, and his head had fallen back as if it were heavy. His eyes were closed.

“Shit, man. I’m real fuckin’ sorry,” Negan said, and he noted with some surprise that he meant it. Sympathy for the other man had spread through his chest like something heavy and thick, and he fought an urge to get up and touch him. He snorted at himself internally. He was sure the reserved, polite stranger would not appreciate Negan suddenly putting his hands on him. Although now that the idea was in his head, it was difficult to dislodge.

 _The hell’s wrong with you_? he demanded of himself, amused. He knew what was wrong with him - he always thought with his dick, and he had noticed that the man beside him was fucking sexy as soon as he walked into the garage. He had seen right away that he had some shit going on, too, and the distress he could feel him trying to contain was just drawing him in more, playing on the protective instinct that he knew was one of the few redeeming companion qualities to his dominating nature.

Rick had been silent so long that Negan assumed he was going to take his condolences as rhetorical. “Thank you,” the other man returned softly, startling him. “I appreciate that.”

Negan glanced up, and the blue eyes were on him. _Damn_ , he thought to himself. _That is one fine-ass widower_. He supposed the thought would make most decent people feel guilty, but he was never one to be over-burdened with propriety, himself. He dropped his head back down towards his work. “You mind coming over here and holding this?” It was the weakest fucking excuse in the world, and again, Negan supposed a decent man would be ashamed of himself, but he was not a particularly decent man. He wanted Georgia to stand a little closer.

The man complied, walking over to the front of the car and leaning in to grasp the rusty fuel pump and hold it aside so that Negan could work around the engine more easily. The man’s tanned, muscled arm was exposed up to the elbow with his rolled-up shirt sleeves, and Negan had to fight back a naughty, satisfied grin at his success in improving the view.

“I never did learn nothin’ about cars,” Rick said quietly above him.

“Lucky for me, or I wouldn’t have been able to make your acquaintance this fine day,” Negan returned cheerfully, and he was pleased to see Rick’s worried expression ease somewhat into a faint, shy smile when he glanced up at him. Negan worked steadily, investigating each piece of the car’s rusty inner workings, searching for the culprit that had caused the break-down. Despite the utter lack of sincerity in his request that Rick help, the other man _was_ helpful, passing Negan tools and holding things as directed.

“How’s it lookin’?” Rick asked finally, after some time had passed.

Negan straightened up and looked at him, and the other man was biting at his full, pink lower lip. Fuck. This fucking guy was going to get him hard in the middle of the garage. Even as the thought drifted across Negan’s mind, the drawn, anxious look on the other man’s face rebuked him. _Focus, you fucking horndog_.

“Well,” Negan began, hesitating. Honestly, it looked bad. It was an old car with old parts, and trying to replace any one of them would be a goddamn nightmare. Negan was hoping he could get it running for him again without having to go that route, but what he had seen so far wasn’t encouraging. “Still too early to tell,” he said finally. He glanced up at Rick, and he was struck both by how much more _blue_ his eyes looked up close and also by the resigned, knowing expression in them. Negan shot him a rueful smile, aware that Rick had seen right through him.

“It’s bad, ain’t it?”

“Yeah, probably. But I don’t know how bad, so just…think happy fucking thoughts, okay?” Rick nodded jerkily, and Negan turned his attention back to the car. Well, largely back to the car, and somewhat back to the smooth flesh on the exposed forearm in his periphery. He tried to think of a distracting line of conversation. “You drive up this way a lot, officer? Scenery’s nice, huh?”

Rick twitched in surprise beside him. “How did you know I was a cop?” he asked, sounding bewildered.

Negan straightened, laughing, and reached back to retrieve another tool. “Oh, come _on_. Of course you’re a cop. You got it written all over you. Hell, I can just about smell it on you.” Negan leaned forward, making as if he would actually sniff the other man’s collar. Rick jerked back, and Negan could swear he turned faintly pink. He bent back over the car, chuckling. “No disrespect, officer,” he added cheekily, almost as an afterthought.

Rick scoffed beside him, shaking his head. “You ain’t the first person to tell me I look like a cop, but I really don’t know what the hell that means.”

“Didn’t say you _looked_ like one,” Negan grunted, groping beneath the cool metal of the engine.

“Right, I smell like one. How’s that? What’s a cop smell like?” There was a teasing defiance in Rick’s warm drawl that Negan liked. He liked it very, very much.

He turned his head, looking up to meet the other man’s gaze. He beamed his most charming smile up at him, fully aware of its siren power. “Like righteousness and apple pie, Rick. You know. Wholesome.” He winked flirtatiously at him, pleased when Rick dropped his eyes, flushing openly now and with a smile trembling at the corners of his lips.

Negan turned back to his work with a sense of triumph that was short-lived in the face of the increasingly bleak situation under the hood of the old car. Finally, he straightened with a grunt and turned to Rick, who was looking at him with apprehension in his clear blue eyes. “There’s a lot that’s going on here, Rick, but most of it can be patched over. The problem is your carburetor - it’s completely shot. You need a new one, which ain’t the easiest thing in the world to get these days, seein’ as fuel injection’s made ‘em obsolete. On top of that, you know, all that shit is unique to the make and model of the car, so I need to make a few calls and see how fast I can get one that’s gonna work. Nothing we have on site is gonna do it.”

Rick sighed and raised a hand to his forehead. “How long do you think it’ll take?”

“Honestly? I can’t say. Depends on how fast I can get the piece.” Negan cleaned his hands on a rag, frowning over at Rick where he stood with his hand covering his eyes. The urge to touch him was back, and he pushed it away again. “Hey, go get yourself some of that shitty coffee in the front while I get on the phone. I’ll threaten a few people for you, okay? I can be really fucking unpleasant when I put my mind to it.” Negan was gratified when the hand fell away, and Rick met his eyes again with a faint smile.

“Really? I never woulda guessed.”

Negan winked at him again, pleased with the light challenge in the other man’s tone. “Stay on my good side, officer, and you’ll never have to see for yourself.” With that, he strolled past Rick, deliberately invading his space as he passed, his shoulder nearly brushing the other man’s chest.

He _did_ issue a few threats on the phone, although neither his charm nor his threats could make a thirty-year-old rare car part materialize in a sixty-mile radius. The best he could do was to have the owner of a garage just over the North Carolina border pass it over to a trucker buddy who was riding out that night. Negan knew even that was damn lucky.

He found Rick looking doubtfully into a cup of thick, black liquid in what passed for the garage’s reception area: a couple of folding chairs and an ancient coffee maker shoved into a corner. “You know what? You probably shouldn’t drink that. Either some fucker around here is putting their damn cigarettes out into the coffee pot or that’s just how it _tastes_ , but either way, there’s a diner around the corner with coffee that doesn’t taste like the devil’s tobacco spit.”

Rick looked up, and Negan could see the disappointment in his eyes as his words sunk in. “Diner? Am I gonna be here that long?”

Negan sighed and scratched his stubbled cheek. “I’m sorry, officer. Tomorrow morning’s the earliest that car is going to be on the road. Part’s coming from North Carolina.”

Rick dropped his head, exhaling slowly. “Shit.”

“Yeah, I know. It’s a bitch. You’re fuckin’ stranded. Like I said, though, there’s a diner around the corner, and then there’s a motel across the road.” Negan raked a hand through his hair. He could feel the dejection coming off the man, and that urge to touch was back yet again. _Fucking stop it_ , he told himself, but the rest of his body didn’t get the memo because he had taken a step towards him.

The other man looked up, and if he was surprised at Negan’s sudden proximity he didn’t show it. “Can I use your phone?” he asked quietly. “Mine’s not workin’ for some reason.”

Negan gave him a startled look before he burst out into helpless laughter, earning an annoyed glare from Rick. “Oh, _fuck_. Shit is really going sideways for you today, boy. You’ve got problems with your fucking phone, too? Are you sure you didn’t break a mirror or five?”

Rick looked like he was struggling between amusement and irritation. Amusement won, and his lips twitched into the barest smile. “Well, not that I remember,” he sighed. “But it does seem like it.”

Negan pulled his cell phone from his pocket and handed it over, shaking his head. “Here you go, officer. Try not to rub any of that bad fucking luck on it. I got enough of my own.”

That amused-or-irritated fight was back in the man’s eyes, but he finally ducked his head and murmured, “Thank you. I need to see about the kids.”

Negan nodded and turned away, suddenly feeling like King Asshole of Jackass Kingdom for messing with the guy. Right - his kids. He had forgotten about that angle in the fun of his teasing flirtation. He made his way back to Rick’s unfortunate car. The least he could do was get everything else squared away while the carburetor made its odyssey. The sun had sunk beyond the horizon, and the flickering, faint overhead lighting in the garage hardly kept the soft darkness of twilight at bay. Everyone was trickling out now that closing time had rolled around, and the silence made the space seem larger. Negan angled a light into the dark interior of the hood of the old car and busied himself with the repairs until a soft step alerted him to another presence in the otherwise empty room.

Rick was standing a few feet away, holding out his phone. The shadows under his eyes looked blacker in the dim light. “Thank you. Really.”

Negan took it from him, flashing a smile. “Rugrats taken care of?”

“Mm-hm. Their grandparents ain’t happy I can’t pick ‘em up on time.” Rick smiled, and it didn’t touch his eyes. “They never thought much of me as a son-in-law from the start, though, so it don’t take much to disappoint ‘em now.”

Negan felt his eyebrows go halfway up his forehead. “Seriously? They’re pissed at _you_ because your fuckin’ car broke down? Fuck them with a chainsaw, then.”

Rick’s startled gaze fell on him, and he laughed - an actual, genuine, amused laugh, the first Negan had heard from him. “That’s awful graphic, but I appreciate the sentiment.”

Negan leaned against the car and grinned. “ _I’m_ awful graphic, Rick, in case you haven’t fucking noticed. Why don’t you head on over to that diner? You could probably use something to eat after this shitty-ass day.”

Rick was shaking his head. “I think I’ll probably just go get a room at that motel. I’ve been drivin’ the whole day. I’m exhausted.” He wrapped his arms around himself, shivering. The warmth of the day had departed with the sun, and the air around them had a chilly bite.

“You sure that’s a good idea? You looked like you were about to keel over when you came in here.” Negan wiped his hands on a rag and gave Rick a sly smile. “The apple pie’s pretty good.” Negan could have sworn he saw the other man’s cheeks glow pink again.

“I’m honestly not th-that hungry,” he replied, and his words came out shivering as he clutched himself more tightly.

“You _that_ cold, officer? Damn, this is barely jacket weather up here.”

Rick gave a wry laugh. “Like I said, I’m from Georgia. I’m not used to this.”

Negan made a soft noise in his throat that was more suggestive than sympathetic. “You want me to come up there with you, then? Keep you warm?” Now it was unmistakeable - a red flush bloomed on the other man’s face in response. Negan rocked back on his heels, affecting surprise. “ _Shit_. I think maybe you do.” He tossed the rag he was holding aside and closed the distance between them, and Rick fell back, shaking his head wordlessly. Negan held his hands up in the universal not-gonna-hurt-you gesture, mind chugging away at the riddle in front of him - how to get this handsome, honey-voiced, blue-eyed stranger to let him into his bed tonight. He wanted that. Yes, he wanted that very fucking much. “Listen, I get it. You’re not the kind of guy that fucks someone they just met, am I right?”

The flush on the man’s cheeks deepened with the bald statement of Negan’s intentions. “You can smell that on me, too?” Rick said, and Negan had to fight a triumphant smirk at the hint of shy flirtation in his voice.

“That’s right, officer,” he said with an easy smile. “But…I think you wanna make an exception here. You know why?” He tilted his head back, eyes raking lazily over the man in front of him. He waited patiently for him to take the bait, and his patience was rewarded.

“Why?” Rick asked hesitantly, and he grinned at him in response, tongue coming to lick at the corner of his mouth.

“Because I could really, really, _really_ turn this shitty day you’ve been having _right_ the fuck around. Believe me, darlin’.”

The corners of Rick’s mouth twitched, and he stared at the floor. His shoulders relaxed, and when the blue eyes rose to meet his again, Negan knew from their slightly hazy expression that he had him hooked. “You know what? I think I _do_ believe you.”

Negan held his gaze and stepped forward slowly, giving the other man ample time to retreat. He didn’t - he held his ground with his arms still wrapped around himself as Negan drew closer, practically standing on his toes. He bent down to Rick’s ear. “Do me a favor,” he murmured, “and go get yourself something to eat, then head on over to that motel. I need to keep workin’ on the car for a little. Get her ready for tomorrow. I’ll head on up in a couple hours, and then I’ll get to working on _you_. Sound like a plan?”

Rick turned his head to look at him, looking surprised and faintly touched. “You’re…gonna keep workin’? Everyone’s gone.”

Negan grinned down at him. “Mm-hm. Gonna make sure this thing’s ready to go for you tomorrow. Does that just make you all _tingly_ with gratitude?”

Rick pressed his lips together and blushed harder, to Negan’s fascination. He was about to say something else - he was wondering just how red the man could get - when he was silenced by lips on his. Rick kissed him, winding one arm around his neck and letting the other rest on his chest, fingers sinking into the soft leather of his jacket. For once, Negan was completely caught off-guard. Rick pulled back after a moment. “Yeah, actually. It does,” he said quietly, his tone a touch more bold.

Negan stared down at him, surprised, gratified, and suddenly very, very hard. He slid his arms around the other man’s torso, gathering him up closer. “That’s good,” he said, recovering, “I’ll be sure to fucking cash that in later.” He dropped his head and kissed his throat just over the softly throbbing pulse, and the other man shivered in his arms. It may have been from his lips on his neck, but Negan thought it was at least partially from the cold, so he stripped off his jacket. He could see the protest rise immediately in the other man’s eyes as he wrapped it around his shoulders. “Just fucking take it. You’re shaking.”

“I can’t take your jacket,” Rick objected, “you’ll be cold.”

Negan laughed, tugging him by the lapels into his chest. “What’d I just fucking say? This isn’t jacket weather to us townies, Georgia. I don’t wear that thing because I get cold. I wear it because it makes me look _cool_. Duh.”

Rick scoffed, shaking his head, but he slipped his arms into the jacket. “Fine.” He hesitated, eyes on the floor for a moment. “Thank you.”

“Thank me later,” Negan replied, his voice velvet. The flush darkened on Rick’s face, and Negan caught his tongue between his teeth, pleased. He let Rick go with reluctance, urging him toward the open front of the garage. “Go on. Get some food in you. You’re not fucking going to sleep without eating anything after driving all goddamn day. Christ.”

Rick went, throwing him a grudging look over his shoulder. “Yes, mama.”

“That’s ‘daddy’ to you,” Negan called after him, and even in the dim light, he could see the heat of the _look_ Rick sent back at him in response. He listened to his footsteps retreat, and then he turned back to the car’s open hood with a cheerful whistle. Today was turning out to be very good fucking day, indeed.

—

Rick leaned his face into his hands, elbows propped on the table in front of him. He was tucked into a booth at the diner down the road, coffee steaming away in a mug in front of him. The cuffs of the borrowed jacket were close to his face, and he inhaled the oddly pleasing mix of leather and gasoline. _What the hell do you think you’re doing, Rick Grimes_? he asked himself sternly. The idea of him inviting a stranger into his motel room - and not for _lemonade_ , either, there was no pretense about the nature of the invitation - was incredible. He wouldn’t have believed he had done it if he hadn’t been there himself. He had never done anything like that before in his entire life; he didn’t know whether you could actually smell that sort of thing on another person, but Negan had been right about that.

 _Negan_. Rick squirmed in his seat, feeling a blush creep up his neck. He couldn’t _think_ straight with the other man’s searing-hot gaze on him, and his gaze _always_ seemed to be on him, from the moment he had first introduced himself. Standing next to him was like standing next to a fully stoked and blazing furnace. A _mouthy_ furnace, with a broad chest and a wicked-looking smile. Rick dropped his hands, trying to will his thoughts away from that visual as he felt the immediate warmth spread between his hips.

 _What the hell are you doing_? he asked himself again, bringing the mug to his lips, flustered at his own body’s reaction to his wandering thoughts. The coffee was smooth and rich and comforting, and Rick savored it. Negan was right about that, too - the second he had stepped inside the diner, he realized how desperate he actually was for something to eat. The anxiety had chased away his appetite completely earlier, but now…he felt easier, somehow. _That’s_ what he was doing, he supposed - chasing the comfort. For all his teasing, Negan had made him feel at ease, and he wanted more.

“Here you are, darlin’,” a voice said at his elbow, and he beamed a grateful smile to the young woman who had appeared beside him. She set the slice of pie in front of him with a smile. As soon as the mouth-watering scent of it reached his nose, he realized all over again how _hungry_ he was. He took a small bite and came close to giving an audible sigh as its sweetness spread over his tongue.

 _Because I could really, really,_ really _turn this shitty day you’ve been having right the fuck around. Believe me, darlin’._

He wanted that, good sense be damned. He tugged the jacket closer around him. If that miserable old car had seen fit to strand him in the foothills of Virginia, he would take whatever the universe seemed to be offering in recompense. The pie, the jacket, _and_ the man - the one whose eyes had moved over him as if Rick had already invited him to his bed, before he had even reached his hand out to shake for the first time.

—

“Darlin’, you get more beautiful every time I see you. How’s a thing like that happen?”

Olivia gave him an arch stare over her glasses, smiling. “What do you want, Negan?”

He grinned, leaning against the motel counter. “I’m looking for a customer from the garage. His car’s in a bad way, and I sent him up here.”

Olivia laughed, pushing her glasses up her nose. “The cute one that came in wearing your jacket? You don’t say!”

Negan leaned further over the counter, dropping his voice to a conspiratorial whisper. “He _is_ cute, isn’t he?”

“Yes. And he said he was expecting you, so go on up. Number 111.”

Negan knocked his hand lightly against the hard wood of the counter. “Thank you, angel face.” He began to turn away, but he felt a light hand on his wrist.

“Hey, you be nice to him. He looked stressed out.”

Negan blinked at her, frowning slightly. Why was everyone warning him to be nice today? “That’s the idea, honey. I’m gonna de-stress him.” He lifted a hand to his mouth, curled around an imaginary dick, and pressed a tongue to the inside of his cheek to complete the dirty pantomime, shooting Olivia a wink.

Olivia shook her head, groaning. “Okay, wow. God bless, then.”

“Don’t be jealous, babydoll,” he called over his shoulder as he sauntered away, and Olivia blew a very loud, unladylike raspberry by way of reply.

He stepped out into the cool night air again, turning and heading down the long row of brightly painted doors. It was far from his first tryst at this particular motel - or with one of his clients from the garage, for that matter - but something felt different, and he was aware of his heart cantering in his chest as he reached out to rap sharply on Number 111. After a moment, the door swung open, and Negan was surprised at the intensity of the satisfied thrill that ran through him when he saw that Rick was still wrapped in his jacket.

The other man smiled, dropping his eyes, and stepped back. Negan strolled past him and into the small motel room. The space felt rather overcrowded with all the furniture crammed inside, and the overall effect of the floral-printed-everything was grandmotherly. Negan almost laughed at the wall of artificial heat that immediately met him as he crossed the threshold. Rick had been at the thermostat, apparently. He sprawled sideways onto the love seat upholstered in candy-pink roses against the wall, putting his boots up on the old coffee table and shooting Rick an impudent look, as if daring him to protest. The other man just shut the door and stood leaning against it, seemingly at a loss for words, eyes still on the ground.

“Hey. Georgia.” Negan reached out an arm and crooked a finger at him. After a moment’s hesitation, Rick walked over and sank onto the cushions beside him, leaving as much room between them as the petite piece of furniture would allow. Negan came dangerously close to rolling his eyes. He seized the lapel of the leather jacket and tugged until Rick fell against his chest with a startled look. He grinned down at him in response, wrapping an arm around his shoulders. “You gettin’ all shy again? Shit, you weren’t shy earlier when you laid those lips on me in the garage,” he teased lightly, running his fingers down his arm.

Rick’s startled look dissolved into amusement, and he gave a brief laugh. “I think I used up most of my nerve on that,” he confessed.

Negan’s smile softened, and his tongue poked out between his teeth. “Yeah? Good thing I have enough nerve for the both of us.”

Rick gave an amused snort and hesitantly slid an arm around his waist. “You do, don’t you?”

 _Now we’re fucking getting somewhere_ , Negan thought. He was having a hard time focusing considering that his mind had fast-forwarded to the very distracting image of Rick stripped bare and spread beneath him on that bed with its garish floral orgy of a quilt, and he gave himself a mental shake. “So? What do you think of our local hospitality?”

Rick looked down again. “Well, you were right. I was starvin’, and the coffee and pie were great.”

Negan gave an appreciative hum, shooting his eyebrows up. “I _was_ right, wasn’t I? Howabout _that_.”

“Don’t let it get to your head,” Rick drawled in retort, looking up through his lashes.

Damn it if the sass didn’t make Negan’s thighs clench. He _wanted_ to take this slow - he knew that’s what the man in his arms needed. Negan was very aware that he had sweet-talked him into doing something wildly out of his comfort zone; he needed to proceed with caution to avoid sending the man bolting from his arms like a startled deer. But there was a razor blade hidden in the blue-eyed man’s genteel sweetness, and every time it nicked him, the insistent hot throb between his legs got a little harder to ignore. He slid a hand under the jacket and ran it lightly up Rick’s side, emboldened. “Yes, sir, officer,” he replied huskily.

Rick cleared his throat and flushed. “How’s the, uh…the car?”

“Ready for tomorrow, with an empty space just waiting to be filled.” He paused for a beat. “You know. With a new carburetor.”

Rick fought a smile and lost. “You got kind of a one-track mind, don’t you?”

Negan gave an insinuating chuckle. “You got no idea, blue eyes.” His patience hit its end - he was suddenly extremely tired of not having his mouth on the other man’s. “Can I kiss you?”

Rick’s gaze on him grew appealingly flustered. “Uh, y-yes. Yeah. Okay.”

Negan bent his head to his and captured his lips almost delicately. He waited until the other man responded, arm sliding around his neck, before lapping lightly at the full lower lip in a silent entreaty. Rick’s lips parted almost immediately, to his gratification, and he invaded the willing mouth with his tongue. He made an appreciative noise low in his throat as Rick’s tongue met his challengingly. They sparred like that for some time, wet and intimate, before Negan pulled back.

Rick blinked at him almost sleepily, and Negan met the glazed expression in his eyes with a distinctly self-satisfied smirk. He settled back on the cushions, pulling Rick into his lap until he was straddling him. He cocked his head back, eyes trailing up Rick’s torso until they rested on his face again. Rick was flushed, and Negan wasn’t sure whether it was from shyness or arousal or both.

He cupped the pink cheeks lightly, feeling the heat there, before dropping his hands to his shirt. He paused, fingers at the first button. “Well?” Negan asked softly.

Rick gaped at him, and his confusion was fucking _cute_. “Huh?”

“Do you want me to unbutton this, Rick?” The shirt was open at the collar, and Negan watched in fascination as the flush spilled down Rick’s throat. The other man nodded mutely. Negan couldn’t help himself - he frowned and cocked his head towards Rick, fanning a hand behind his ear. “What’s that, darlin’? Speak up.”

“Yes,” Rick said huskily, shooting him a heated, stern look that went straight to his dick.

He attacked the buttons without further delay, revealing Rick’s muscled chest. Negan sucked an appreciative breath breath between his teeth, shooting a mischievous glance up at the other man. “Damn, officer. Is it fucked up that I’m jealous of the sorry bastards you’ve slapped your cuffs on?” He ran his fingers over one rosy nipple, tweaking lightly, and Rick sucked in a hissing breath. “You can bend me over your squad car anytime. I’ve been known to go forty in a twenty-five. I deserve it.” Negan had a feeling he was close to answering the how-red-can-he-get question. Rick’s skin practically glowed with his scarlet flush.

 _Fucking cute_ , Negan thought, and affection swelled in him. He leaned forward and pressed a kiss to the center of Rick’s chest. He nipped and licked his way over to the nipple under his fingers before closing his lips over it, relishing Rick’s faint moan. He pushed the shirt and jacket over Rick’s shoulders and down his arms in one smooth motion, letting them fall to the floor carelessly. Rick’s arms wrapped around his shoulders the moment they were freed, clinging to him as his breathing grew heavier.

Negan’s hands wandered his exposed flesh eagerly, and his fingers brushed over something raised, thick, and rough at his shoulder. He released the nipple he was laving to glance up. He stared, not quite believing what he was looking at for a moment. He met Rick’s eyes, and there was an apprehensive, almost sad expression in their blue depths. “You took a fuckin’ bullet, Georgia?” Negan asked softly, stroking his thumb over the scar.

Rick drew a breath as if to speak, but instead he let it out slowly. “It’s a real long story,” he said finally.

Negan looked searchingly into the other man’s eyes, and Rick ducked his head in response. Something stubborn and entitled rose up in him from the depths of his less admirable qualities, demanding that he press the issue, and he struggled with it for a minute. _Don’t be a dick_ , he reminded himself. He could figure what had happened - poor guy took a fucking bullet on the job. If he didn’t want to talk about it, that was fine - he didn’t owe Negan his memoirs. He slid the hand that was resting over the scar up Rick’s tanned throat and into his hair. He tugged him down to meet his lips again, and the kiss was slow and tender. When he drew back, Rick had that hazy, drifting look again, and the sadness had retreated.

Negan smiled softly at him. “Listen, baby. If you want to make out like teenagers on the couch all night, that’s fine by me. But if you’re agreeable, I’d like to lay you out on that bed. I made a promise to you earlier, and I’d like to make good on it.” _Seems like you fucking need it_ , Negan added silently. The man in his arms seemed to be full of grim surprises.

Rick nodded, and then, as if remembering Negan’s earlier teasing, he whispered, “Yes.” He gave a startled jerk as Negan suddenly wound one strong arm around his waist and the other under a thigh. He stood, lifting Rick, who reflexively wrapped his legs around Negan’s waist and buried his head in his shoulder. Negan walked them over to the bed before laying Rick on it carefully. Shit, that quilt was even uglier up close. He kicked his shoes off and crawled over him, braced on his forearms.

Rick looked up at him, and his brow furrowed. “Your eyes…” he trailed off, his gaze probing. “Your eyes look so much brighter in the light.” He paused for a moment, taking in that revelation, before arching his head up in silent offering.

Negan closed the distance between their lips. He was pleased when the other man’s hands immediately slid under his shirt, exploring the warm flesh beneath the fabric. He pulled back long enough to strip it off before draping himself back over Rick, chest to chest, pressing him into the cheap mattress. He sucked lightly at the flesh of his neck, toying with the idea of marking him deliberately before pushing away the impulse. _Don’t be a dick_. Rick sucked in a breath and lifted his thighs to trap Negan’s hips between them. Negan rocked against him in response, and he could feel the other man’s arousal swelling against him even through the thick denim of his jeans.

“What do you want, darlin’?” he murmured against Rick’s throat, voice a sultry rumble. “Just tell me. You know, your wish is my command and all that shit.” He rose up on his arms to gaze down at the man lying beneath him.

“I don’t know,” Rick confessed, and the honest uncertainty in his eyes touched something in Negan’s chest, making it throb. “I guess I just want you to do what you said you would. Turn this shitty day around.” Rick reached up and traced the tattoo that sprawled across his chest. “I have a feelin’ you know exactly how.”

Negan grinned down at him. The light touch of his fingers on his chest was sending tingles shooting through him that converged right at his dick, and he was surprised at how much the relatively innocent touch was affecting him. “All right, officer. Tell you what. I’ll get to work, and you keep on talking to me. Let me know if you want me to keep going, stop, change direction, whatever-the-fuck. Sound like a plan?”

Rick made a quiet noise of assent in his throat, and somehow it made the tingles racing through him stronger. Negan leaned in as if to kiss him again, and when his lips were nearly brushing the other man’s, he rose and sat back on his knees. Rick’s eyes flew open, and he was so clearly bereft of the kiss he had been expecting that Negan chuckled. Rick shot him an exasperated look, smiling despite his annoyance, and Negan’s hands fell to his belt. He paused, and his teasing gaze softened, an unspoken question surfacing in his eyes.

“Yes,” Rick said quietly, his voice hardly over a whisper.

Negan undid the belt slowly, tossing it aside with a soft clank. Rick shivered beneath him as his fingers traced the flesh just above his waistband. Negan held the other man’s eyes, the ghost of a smirk sitting on his lips, as he flicked open the button of his jeans and tugged down the zipper with deliberate, teasing slowness. Rick draped an arm over his eyes, and Negan groaned in protest. “Oh, come _on_ , blue eyes. Lost the staring contest already?”

“Shut up,” Rick muttered, smiling. Negan leaned back and tugged at his jeans. After a few moments of inelegant squirming, he managed to free Rick from them as well as his boxers. He licked his lips at the sight of the other man’s cock. Rick still had his arm determinedly clamped over his eyes, and he reached up and gave his wrist a light tug.

“I think you’re gonna wanna see this, honey,” Negan murmured before he bent his head and licked Rick slowly from root to tip. The noise Rick made in response was _delicious_ , and Negan grinned in triumph against the soft, velvety skin. He smoothed a palm along one side of him at his base and nuzzled at the other side, trapping his cock between his hand and mouth. He heard a sharp intake of breath above him, and a hand dove into his hair. “You know what?” he murmured against the heat of Rick’s arousal. “Hold that thought for just one second.” He pulled back, and Rick’s expression was near horror. Negan chuckled as he crawled off of him and stood up. “I’m not _that_ much of a dick, sweetheart, relax. Pull the covers - you’re gonna get cold lying there butt-ass naked.”

He walked into the bathroom and grabbed an armful of towels. Rick was slipping under the covers when he returned, and he dumped them beside him. He went over to the love seat and plucked up his discarded jacket. He threw it over the foot of the bed and crawled back over Rick, who was staring at the pile of towels beside him with some confusion. Negan chuckled as he knelt between his legs. “Yeah, Georgia, you’re gonna be a fucking _mess_ when I’m done with you.” With that, he leaned forward and took his entire length into his mouth and throat.

Rick fell back as if he had been struck, giving a deep, wrenching moan that shivered down Negan’s spine. He bucked, predictably, and Negan moved with him, shooting him an amused glance. As he did, he was pleased to see that Rick was completely lost in it, his expression sheer, pained bliss. He steadied Rick’s hips with his hands so that he could bob smoothly over his length, and the other man writhed against him, very nearly kneeing him in the ribs in the process. Negan had to hold in a laugh. The other man’s total abandonment was cute, but he hoped to avoid both getting kicked as well as having Rick’s pubic bone slammed into his face. As far as sexual injuries went, that last one was fairly unpleasant.

Rick was smothering his cries with his hands, and Negan fought the urge to reach up and yank them away. He wanted to _hear_ the evidence of the pleasure he was giving him, but he was trying to take care with the lovely stranger beneath him, with his mysterious bullet wounds and the deep, dark circles beneath his clear blue eyes. If that meant being a little less demanding and directive than he usually was in bed, well, he could manage that.

Negan could feel that Rick was drawing close to his peak by his increasingly frantic bucking against the hands trapping his hips in place. His hand found its way back in Negan’s hair and carded through the dark strands, the gesture unexpectedly sweet. Negan hummed around his length as he took him deep in his throat, and that seemed to be just what Rick needed to slip over the edge. His release pooled in Negan’s mouth, and he could feel the hand in his hair tugging urgently. He realized he was trying to pull him off so that he wouldn’t come down his throat, which was an act of closing the barn door after the horse got out if he ever knew one, and he would have laughed if it were possible for him in the moment.

When he was finished, he released Rick with a soft, wet noise and licked his lips, gazing up at him. The other man was covering his face with his hands, and he frowned, feeling the faintest tingle of concern. He gave the inside of Rick’s thigh a soft kiss. “You okay up there, darlin’?” he asked gently.

“Mm-hm,” the other man croaked weakly behind his hands. He reached down slowly and took Negan’s arm, tugging him up. He let himself be guided, wrapping himself around the other man’s body and burying his nose in his chestnut curls. “That was, um…” Rick faltered, clearly abashed.

Negan decided to have a little mercy. “Yeah, I know it was,” he said with a chuckle. He kissed the other man’s damp temple. “I could tell.” Rick turned his head, burying his face in his neck. Negan closed his eyes, his hand wandering over Rick’s chest. He was just resigning himself and his erection to the thought that the other man may very well drift off to sleep in his arms when Rick’s hand slid from his hip to reach between his thighs, palming the hardness there. He felt a bolt of shock shoot straight through him, and he reared back to stare at the man in his arms.

Rick met his eyes with a slight, sly smile. “You, uh…I think you need some attention.”

“Yeah? And are you gonna give it to me, Rick?” he breathed, feeling almost light-headed at the daring way Rick was handling him. In response, Rick unfastened his belt and discarded it over the edge of the bed. He hesitated, nipping at his lower lip again, and suddenly Negan’s pants were impossibly confining. He shoved them down his hips along with his briefs, kicking them both off as he noted the hungry interest in Rick’s eyes. He wanted to flip the other man over immediately and grind against that lovely backside, but he forced himself to be still and wait. He was rewarded when Rick’s eyes, hazy once again with lust, met his.

“What do you want?” Rick’s hand slid up his thigh, and he dropped his eyes to Negan’s cock again, licking his lips. “Do you want me to…” he trailed off with a flush. “Do what you did for me?”

Those full, pink lips wrapped around him? _Hell_ , yes, but that’s not all he wanted. “You can have a taste if you want, Georgia, but I was hoping you’d let me put it in your ass. Fuck you into this shitty mattress and make you come again.” Negan reached out and ran his fingers through the chestnut curls, a little amused at the deer-in-headlights expression that briefly surfaced on Rick’s face.

The other man ducked his head. “Okay,” he said quietly, and then he shocked Negan yet again by sliding down his body to grip the base of his cock and draw him into his mouth.

 _Oh, shit_. Negan gripped the sheets beneath his hands and gave a near-whimper. That shit was _unbelievably_ good - the wet heat of Rick’s mouth surrounded and caressed him. He let himself get lost in it for a bit, letting the moans fall from his lips unchecked, before he reached down to pull Rick up into his arms. He attacked his lips with his, feeling a hot thrill at his own taste on Rick’s tongue. He cupped Rick’s ass roughly and slid his fingers between the soft, warm flesh to stroke over his tight entrance. Rick’s entire body tensed in his arms, and he paused, drawing back. His pulse thundered through him, making his head feel fuzzy, and he had to give himself a moment to breathe before he could focus on Rick’s face. There was a faint, anxious hesitance in the depths of his blue eyes, and Negan pressed a kiss to his forehead. “Never done this before, huh?” Negan murmured, lips brushing over damp skin.

“Actually…” Rick hesitated. “Well, that’s a long story, too.” He tried to pull Negan in for another kiss, but the other man resisted him gently, cupping his jaw and frowning down at him.

Something in the other man’s tone had caught Negan’s attention, and he scanned his blue eyes as if trying to read something written there. “Tell me,” he said, and as gentle as his tone was, it came out a command.

“It’s not important.”

“Seems important,” Negan countered softly. “Seems _relevant_ , even.” He slid his hand up Rick’s jaw to rest on his cheek, stroking lightly with his thumb.

Rick struggled to find the words and faltered. “It’s so hard to explain it right,” he said finally.

“Explain it wrong, then, baby. It’s okay.” He hadn’t pushed about the scar, but there was something here that he sensed he needed to know before this shit went any further. The way Rick had tensed when he touched him intimately had sparked a cold, suspicious dread to life in his heart.

Rick shifted his eyes away, finding it hard to think with Negan’s gaze burning into him. His first instinct was to insist that the other man to drop it, but something in him compelled him to speak. “My best friend was in love with my wife. I knew it. She knew it. He knew we knew it. It was…complicated. When she died, he was an absolute wreck. After the funeral, we were alone in the house, and he was…inconsolable. One minute I was holding him, trying to calm him down, and the next - we were on the floor. It went too fast, and it wasn’t very…pleasant. He wasn’t trying to hurt me,” Rick amended hastily, feeling Negan stiffen and shift dangerously above him, still unable to look up and meet his eyes, “it wasn’t like that. He didn’t force himself on me. He just…wasn’t really there with me at all.”

Rick stared down at the white sheet gathered in his hand, lost in the memory. Shane had flipped him over onto his stomach and crawled over him like a desperate man, sobbing against his shoulder as he rocked into him. Rick had reached back to stroke his hair as best he could, trying in vain to comfort the man falling apart above him even as each thrust left him cringing. Shane had mounted him with nothing more than saliva on his cock and a few desperate probes with his fingers, and as Rick had said, the end result was not very pleasant. By the time his body finally began to respond, Shane was filling him with his sticky release and collapsing against his back. Fingers moving across his cheek brought him out of his reverie, and he looked up into the dark, searing eyes of the man above him.

“Lemme guess. You thought it would help him, so you let him pound on you, not sayin’ a thing.”

Rick gave a dry, humorless laugh. “That’s about it.”

“Yeah. You’re the martyr type, ain’t you, Georgia?” Negan’s fingers stroking his cheek were soothing, but his eyes pierced him as if they actually _could_ see right through, right down to every secret hidden inside. He dropped his gaze back down to the rumpled white sheet. “So, lemme get this straight. Bad fucking day, bad car, bad sex. Anything else you need me to fix?”

Rick let out a surprised laugh, eyes snapping back up to his. “Ain’t that enough?”

Negan was smiling, but his eyes were shadowed. He leaned forward, half-draping himself over Rick, who slid a welcoming arm around his waist. “You know it’s not supposed to hurt, right? At all. Not when you go slow and do it right.” Negan was murmuring in his ear, continuing to caress the side of his face, and Rick found himself drifting on it - his voice and touch cradling him.

“Yeah,” he managed.

Negan shifted until his forehead was almost touching Rick’s. “Is that what you want? You want me to show you? It’s fine if you don’t. There’s a lot more in heaven and earth, sexually speaking, than taking a dick in your ass.”

Rick smiled faintly at that. “I do,” he replied in a whisper. “I trust you.” He surprised himself with that last one. It had just fallen out of his mouth. But he _did_ trust him, somehow, as inexplicable as it was - this utter stranger with the sharp-toothed, wolfish smirk who riled him one moment and soothed him the next. He didn’t know why, but he did, and at least so far that trust had not been misplaced.

Negan had been struck silent, about as rare an occurrence as a lunar-fucking-eclipse, and he dropped his eyes from Rick’s soft gaze. This was turning out to be one hell of a fraught fuck. When he first saw the handsome, tired-eyed man in the garage, he figured he was having a shit day, _singular_. Dead wife, rude-ass in-laws, bullet wound, shitty, oblivious friend slamming on him like he was a blow-up doll - that was shit, _plural_ , accumulating into a goddamn shit avalanche. That last one made him fucking itchy, too - he could practically _see_ Rick gritting his teeth and taking it. His best friend, he had said. _That rat bastard_ , he thought, swallowing the hot swell of rage.

His fingers ran over the scar below Rick’s shoulder, lingering there for a moment. “I’m sorry about all the bad shit that happened to you, Rick Grimes.” He struggled for else, something gentle and comforting, but his natural irreverence won. “If it’s any consolation, I’m gonna make you come so hard tonight that every time you think back on it your dick’s gonna leak.”

Rick smothered a laugh and wrapped his arms around Negan’s neck, pulling him close to his face. “You’re sweet,” he breathed, lips brushing his.

Negan gave a surprised chuckle. “ _Sweet_ , huh? I don’t hear that very often.”

“Well, you’ve been sweet to me,” Rick replied softly, running his fingers along the dark, scratchy stubble at his cheek.

 _You’re easy to be sweet to, Georgia_ , Negan thought as he kissed the man beneath him hungrily, tongue dipping into his mouth. Hell, he had wanted to take the other man into his arms practically from the moment he saw him. Had he told himself that he had hooked Rick, seduced his way into his motel bed? Yeah fucking right. The blue-eyed man had all but brought him to heel with a look and a shy smile. The soft gratitude he sensed in him now was making him melt like a fucking ice cream cone, and he had never been so goddamned _pleased_ to be brought to his knees like this.

Rick wrapped a leg around his, his ankle sliding up his calf. Negan felt like he could spend hours this way, in the engrossing back-and-forth of their mouths, but he was aware all over again of his erection, flushed and aching, against Rick’s warm skin. Negan reached down to his discarded jacket and rummaged in the pockets for a moment. He pulled out several packets of lubricant and tossed them on rumpled sheets. Rick rose to his elbows and looked down at them before meeting Negan’s eyes, his expression equal parts embarrassed and amused.

“What?” Negan asked, smirk tugging the side of his mouth. “I’m a motherfucking _optimist_ , Rick.”

“I can see that,” Rick returned, settling back against the pillow.

Negan reached over and plucked up the pillow on the other side of the bed. He wrapped it in a towel and nudged it at Rick’s hip, and the other man took the hint and lifted himself up so that Negan could slide the pillow beneath him. He reclined beside Rick, propped up on one elbow, and laid his free hand on a warm thigh. “Turn onto your side.”

Rick did, slowly, and the flash of uneasiness Negan saw in his eyes before he did cut him. He pressed himself flush against his back, slipping an arm beneath his waist and wrapping a hand around his cock. Rick gasped, and his head fell back against Negan’s shoulder.

“Let me explain how this is gonna go, darlin’,” he murmured into Rick’s ear. “I’m gonna work you open real slow. And personally? I think you’re gonna _love_ it.” He punctuated that with a firm stroke, and Rick made a hungry noise in his throat. “But if you don’t? If something feels wrong? You need to fucking _say_ something right away. You do not fucking lie there and let me touch you some way you don’t want. Deal?”

Rick licked his lips slowly and reached back, tracing a hand slowly up Negan’s thigh. “Deal,” he whispered.

Negan tore open a packet with his teeth, coating his fingers. He stroked Rick slowly as he reached down to his ass with his other hand, sliding his slick fingers over the soft ring of muscle there. He felt him flinch before relaxing back against him. “You know what?” Negan purred against his neck.

“W-what?” Rick managed in a strangled tone.

Negan grinned against him, and Rick could feel his teeth on his neck. “I think when I’m all done revving you up, you might just beg me to put my dick inside you.”

Rick gave a breathy chuckle, squeezing Negan’s thigh. “I guess we’ll see,” he said almost primly. Negan ran his thumb over the wet, sensitive tip of his cock in response, and he moaned softly, turning his face into the pillow beneath him.

Negan bent his lips to his neck as he teased his opening with gentle pressure, and Rick moaned beneath him again, the sound rippling through him deliciously. He nipped at his neck as he breached him gently, pausing when he felt Rick tense around him. He moved his lips to his ear. “Breathe,” he whispered, moving his hand over his cock in smooth, slow, skillful strokes. Rick let out a whimper as he relaxed around Negan’s finger, which resumed its quest within him. A moment later, Rick shuddered and gasped. Negan grinned against his soft curls. He slid his finger over the spot he had found again, pressing his lips against Rick’s ear. “That’s _real_ fuckin’ good, isn’t it, baby?”

Rick couldn’t answer - he had all but slammed his entire face into the pillow to muffle his cries. Negan’s hand quickened its pace on Rick’s cock before he slid another finger inside, pausing to allow him time to adjust. Rick was rocking back against him in time to his stroking, breathing in shallow pants punctuated by the occasional faint moan. When Negan was satisfied that Rick had relaxed enough around him - and he had, based on the way he was fucking himself on Negan’s fingers - he began to work him open gently, stroking him from the inside, urging the muscles to soften and take him.

Rick let out a sobbing gasp as Negan’s fingers assaulted the sensitive spot deep inside him. “Oh, Jesus,” he ground out, the words muffled in the pillow as he pressed it to his face with both hands.

Negan snorted and nipped his shoulder sharply, grinning. “Don’t call another man’s name when you’re in bed with me, Rick. That’s just fucking rude.” He squeezed the base of his cock just as he pressed mercilessly against his prostate, and Rick’s entire body jolted as he just about screamed into the pillow. Negan chuckled behind him, satisfied. “Aw, honey. Did you like that?”

“ _Please_ ,” Rick nearly wailed, and an almost savage triumph burned through Negan. He withdrew his fingers and sat up, turning Rick onto his back and crawling between his thighs. Rick blinked up at him dazedly, looking utterly lost in the fog of his pleasure. Negan relished the sight as he stroked himself, coating his cock with lubricant.

“Please _what_ , Rick?” he asked, his voice a breathy growl, as he seized one leg beneath the knee and yanked his hips up and against him. He held himself with his other hand, guiding the tip of his cock against Rick’s entrance. “Well?”

Rick’s eyes cleared slightly as he realized what he wanted. “Don’t be a dick,” he panted, smile twitching at the corners of his mouth.

Negan gave a full-throated bellow of pure mirth. “Come _on_ , Georgia, I said I’d make you beg. Beg me, goddamn it.” He pressed against him, barely breaching the softened ring.

Rick’s head snapped back, throat working convulsively. “Negan, please,” he gasped breathlessly. “Please!”

Negan gently slid into him a few inches, and the effort of holding back was almost painful - particularly in light of the noises Rick was making. But if there was something he was willing to endure pain for, it was for the sake of ruthless teasing. “Please _what_ , Rick?”

“Oh, you…you…” Rick bucked against him, trying to take him deeper, but Negan gripped his hips and steadied him, practically biting his lip in half with the effort of keeping still. Rick’s head fell back against the pillow in defeat, and his lashes fluttered. “Negan, please, I want you inside,” he said breathily, and the other man smirked above him, the picture of satisfied glee. Rick reached down and covered one of the hands at his hips with his, and a surprisingly powerful tenderness spread, thick and hot, through Negan’s chest.

“Ask and ye shall receive,” Negan murmured. He sheathed himself slowly, gently within Rick, slipping a hand down to his thigh to rub soothingly as he did. The other man panted and trembled beneath him, his half-lidded eyes hazy with lust. “Fuck,” Negan breathed shakily when he was up to the hilt in him, “you are so fucking gorgeous.” He watched, fascinated, as Rick’s flush returned, blossoming dark pink on his face, throat, and chest.

“Negan,” Rick sighed, brow creasing. “That feels so…so…” he trailed off, eyes falling shut, as he arched his hips up urgently.

Negan groaned in response and tightened his hold on Rick’s hip, fingers sinking into the warm flesh. “Slow down, cowboy. Give it a second.” Rick shook his head wordlessly and rolled his hips again, wrenching another groan from him. “Baby, come on. I’m not fucking teasing you, I just don’t want to _hurt_ you.”

“Not hurting me,” Rick moaned, and the hand overlaying Negan’s at his hip clutched convulsively. “You’re not.” Negan licked his lips slowly and withdrew, giving a careful, experimental thrust. Rick nearly crushed his hand in his grip as he let out a long, deep moan.

“Is that okay?” Negan asked, voice strained, as he rocked gently into him, already knowing the answer from the expression on Rick’s face.

Rick’s lips moved soundlessly for a moment before he managed to croak out a “Y-yes.”

Negan angled Rick’s hip up and ground slowly against him, and the other man let out a low wail before crushing the pillow against his face again to muffle the noise. Negan gave a rumble of displeasure. “Again with the fuckin’ pillow, Georgia? Don’t do that, baby. Let me see you. Let me hear you. Come _on_.”

Rick reluctantly shifted the pillow and peeked over its crisp white edge, his blue eyes sheepish. “Whole…motel…is gonna hear me,” he protested, panting as he slid against the sheets in time with Negan’s languid thrusts. “People…trying to…sleep.”

Negan laughed breathlessly above him. “You know what, darlin’? I don’t think you should give a shit about that or what’s going on with anyone else right now. I think you should focus on what’s going on with _you_ , and the things I’m making you feel with my dick.” He underlined that with another slow grind against him, and Rick gave a harsh cry, wrapping a strong leg around his waist and trying to drag him even closer. “That’s the spirit,” Negan growled, and the candid delight in his voice dissolved the tenuous grip Rick had on his self-control.

Negan could practically see it leave him - his head fell back as he relaxed against the stark white cotton of the motel sheets and gave himself over completely to Negan’s sway. Breathy moans spilled from his parted lips, and each one felt like a lick of flame against Negan’s overheated skin. He wanted to burn the image into his brain - this handsome, vulnerable stranger spread open for him, expression nearly transcendent with bliss. He didn’t look so tired or so anxious now, that was for damn sure. He couldn’t help himself - he _had_ to gloat a little. “How’s your day going now, Rick?”

The other man laughed, and Negan drank it in, answering his merriment with a sharp, wolfish grin. “It’s better,” he gasped out, and his hand slid over Negan’s again, wandering up his forearm.

“Mmm. That’s good, darlin’. That’s just what I wanna hear.” Negan shifted on his knees, leaning forward and seizing Rick’s hips with both hands. Rick’s heated gaze fell on him, and he gave him a slow wink. “Hold on.”

“Hold on to _what_?” Rick shot back, but whatever additional sass was forthcoming was obliterated in the ensuing onslaught. Negan thrust hard and fast and straight against that delicious send-me-to-outer-space spot, and Rick couldn’t suppress his cries if he wanted to. He _did_ hold on, fingers biting into Negan’s forearm and the flesh of his thigh as he bounced with the force of his thrusts. When Negan’s hand wrapped tightly around his cock, his breath stuttered in his chest, and he felt himself teetering on the edge of something ready to swallow him whole.

Negan leaned even closer, not letting up one bit on his galloping pace. “Say my _fucking_ name, Georgia,” he growled, and he slapped Rick’s thigh hard where it met the curve of his ass.

It was as if the lit fuse of his arousal had finally burned down to its explosive source. Rick’s release flared through him like spreading fire; he wasn’t entirely sure, but he thought he was obediently shrieking Negan’s name. He felt the wetness spread on his thighs and inside him, and he heard a low, nearly agonized moan from the man above him.

Negan collapsed forward, catching himself on his arms before he fell straight onto Rick, who looked like he probably wouldn’t have registered it anyway. God _damn_ it, that had just about been an out-of-body experience. He sat back slowly on his knees and tried to breathe through his heart jack-hammering against his ribs. He looked down at the man beneath him, and he had to take a moment to allow the filthy thrill that ran through him at the sight of Rick’s muscular belly and thighs streaked with come. Rick’s eyes were closed - had he already passed right out? Negan chuckled as he grabbed a towel and got to work cleaning up the fucking mess they had made.

He saw Rick’s eyes flutter, and he realized he was trying to open them. “Go to sleep, honey,” he murmured. “You fucking earned it.” He leaned back and pitched the soiled towels into the open door of the bathroom before reaching over Rick to click off the bedside lamp. He sank beside him, pulling the covers over them and wrapping himself around the warm body still damp with sweat. He felt Rick sleepily nestle against him and kissed the disheveled curls at his temple. His last thought before he drifted to sleep was that he owed Bud _several_ cases of beer.

—

Negan nearly tripped over the bundle of towels sprawled on the floor of the bathroom the next morning. Dawn was just breaking, and only the faintest golden light crept beneath the curtains of the small room. The interior of the small bathroom was barely illuminated at all, and Negan had to blindly twist at knobs before the water in the shower ran a decent temperature. He supposed he could have turned the light on, but Rick was sleeping soundly, and he didn’t want to disturb him. He rolled his shoulders and neck slowly under the hot, soothing spray, a smile settling on his lips at the thought of the man sleeping peacefully in the motel bed.

 _Rick_. Hell of a fucking ride. As soon as the thought rose up in his mind, he frowned, the taste of it sour. He was more than that - hadn’t they crashed right through what felt like months of progressive intimacy in the space of an evening? He considered himself a connoisseur of casual one-night stands, and that shit had been anything but casual. What Rick had told him, trusted him with - it had gotten right under his skin and stayed there. The memory of his troubled blue eyes on him as he traced the scar on his shoulder flooded him, and something ached in his chest.

Negan scrubbed his soapy fingers through his wet hair. _Shit_ , he thought, resigned. _You fucking idiot_.

He let the water cascade over him and rinse the last traces of soap away. He reached back and twisted a knob, apparently choosing the wrong one and consequently letting out a string of hissed curses as the water suddenly turned ice-cold. He twisted the other knob rapidly and reached out of the stall to pluck one of the last remaining clean towels up from the metal rack above the sink. He dried himself as he stepped out of the shower. The light of dawn had grown stronger, and now everything in the small bathroom was bathed in a delicate golden-pink glow.

He wrapped the towel around his waist as he padded softly out of the bathroom, and he met Rick’s sleepy blue eyes with a rueful smile. “Shit. Did I wake you up?”

Rick muffled a yawn against his hand and held out an arm to Negan. The simple want in the gesture touched off that ache in his chest again, and he walked to the side of the bed and sank down beside him. “Why are you up so early?” Rick murmured, curling his arm around the damp waist.

“I need to head down to the garage, darlin’.”

Rick gave a soft grunt of surprise. “Already? D’you think the…the part came? From Nor’ Carolina?” Negan grinned down at Rick, unable to hide his amusement. The man was still half-asleep, and his already thick drawl was pure syrup and nearly unintelligible. Negan smoothed a hand through his hair.

“Nah. Probably won’t be here for a few hours.”

Rick blinked at him and reached up, slowly catching the hand in his hair. “Then stay here,” he said, and as soon as he did, his eyes dropped shyly.

Arousal unfurled lazily in him, reaching down to his thighs and between his hips, and Negan sank his teeth into his lower lip for a moment in an effort to control himself. “Baby, you have no idea how good that sounds. But I want to take another look at that car. Make sure I didn’t miss anything. Can’t have you breaking down halfway home to Georgia, can I? Then you might fuck some other mechanic and break my fucking heart.”

Rick groaned and shoved his shoulder. “Shu’up. Never done this before in my _life_.”

Negan’s grin softened slightly at that. “You need to get some sleep, anyway. You won’t get any if I crawl back into bed with you, you best believe that.” Negan slid his hand under the sheets and down Rick’s belly, raking his fingers lightly through the rough curls near his cock. Rick’s breath caught in his throat, and his eyes fluttered shut. “Exactly,” Negan murmured, giving a cat-that-ate-the-canary smile. “So catch a few more hours and then go get breakfast. I’m serious, Rick, go eat some fucking breakfast. Okay? No more bullshit starving yourself. Then come down to the garage at nine-thirty. Shit’ll probably be ready to go by then.”

Rick opened his eyes, and there was a flash of that razor blade in his sleepy gaze. “Jesus, you real goddamn bossy,” he drawled, words sticking to each other as they poured drowsily from him.

Negan gave a delighted chuckle, tongue between his teeth. “Aw, honey. You don’t even _know_.” He bent and kissed his lips gently, pulling the covers to his chin as he stood up. Rick’s eyes slid closed again. Negan dressed himself quietly. He picked up his jacket and hesitated. It was cold in the mornings before the sun had a chance to do its thing. He draped it over Rick before standing back and rubbing his jaw. _You fucking sap_ , he thought, turning towards the door with a grin.

—

“Heard you scared up a part for this job lickety-split,” Bud said from somewhere behind him, and Negan pulled his head out of the car and straightened.

“Yeah,” he said, wiping his hand on a rag. “Wasn’t fucking easy. Trucker’s bringin’ it. No one around here had shit.”

“Yeah, I heard you called around. Kid, you gotta work on your fuckin’ phone etiquette. You know? Try some diplomacy.”

Negan dipped his head back and laughed. “Don’t tell me those fucking princesses complained to you.”

“Just one princess. You really tell Primo you’d head down there with a tire iron if he didn’t drop what he was doing to check his inventory?”

“No, he’s a fucking liar. I said ‘baseball bat,’ not ‘tire iron.’”

Bud cracked a grin. “Well, at least you’re providing some fuckin’ customer service for once.”

Negan flashed his teeth at him in a grin. _You got no idea, old man_.

“Well, speak of the devil,” Bud said, craning his head. A truck was lumbering up the side of the road, and Negan tossed the rag aside, striding out to meet it.

He was just tightening the last bolt on the fateful carburetor when someone sidled up quietly to him. He knew it was Rick without looking, and he stood and turned to him, tossing his wrench aside. Rick was holding his folded jacket in his arms, looking neat and freshly showered. Negan was struck immediately by how much _better_ he looked than yesterday - the dark circles had faded, and that pinched, worried expression was off his face. Amazing what two square meals, a good night’s sleep, and solid, screaming fuck could do. “Well?” he asked, crossing his arms. “Did you eat some fucking breakfast or what?”

Rick’s eyes flashed at him, and he tilted his head. “Yes… _daddy_ ,” he said. He smirked in satisfaction as the riposte landed and shock briefly took over Negan’s expression.

Negan leaned against the car with a muffled oath, feeling his dick respond immediately. “You’re really lucky I’m not into that voyeur shit, Grimes, because I could bend you right over this fucking car right now. Which is now ready to fucking drive, thanks to me.”

Rick looked up at him, and the mischief in his eyes faded, replaced by a cautious hope. “Is it really?”

Negan closed the hood of the car carefully. “Sure is, Georgia. You can get back on the road, get those rugrats of yours. You can give their shitty, judgmental grandparents a swift kick in the ass for me while you’re at it.”

Rick smiled and held out the jacket in his arms. “Thank you,” he said softly, and Negan realized all over again how much he enjoyed hearing those two words from the other man. Rick shuffled his feet. “How much do I owe you?”

Negan shook his head, pulling his jacket on. “Just fucking…forget it. Just forget that. It’s on me.”

Rick’s eyes on him were wide. “I can’t do that.”

“‘Course you can, it’s - “

“I can’t! Not after last night,” Rick said, dropping his voice, and his face was flaming.

Negan couldn’t help himself - startled laughter rang out from him and bent him over at the waist. “Oh, shit, officer,” he wheezed. “Are you vice? Is that it? Aw, come on. What’s wrong with a little whoring if the situation calls for it?”

Rick reached out and punched him in the shoulder. Not so fucking gently, either. “That really ain’t funny,” he said, but his lips were twitching.

“Okay, okay, look - you wrote down your address and shit on your paperwork when you first came in here, right? We’ll send you the fucking bill. Okay?” Rick was giving him a skeptical look, and he sighed theatrically. “Look, here’s the fucking - Bud!” He waved the man over. “Bud, this is Officer Rick Grimes. Rick, Bud used to be a cop a hundred fucking years ago, so there you fucking go. We’re all fucking friends now. Bud, we can send this fine officer of the law the bill in the mail, can’t we?”

Bud had reached over to shake Rick’s proffered hand. “Sure, son. You county law, or…?”

“Yeah. Deputy. Thank you, sir, I appreciate that.”

“Don’t mention it, son. Glad Negan could set you to rights.”

Negan watched the red flush bloom on Rick’s cheeks with a nearly sadistic amusement. “That’s exactly what I did, Bud. It’s like you were saying: customer service. I take it very fucking seriously,” Negan said solemnly.

Bud shot him a puzzled look. “Well, I’ll let you boys finish up. Drive safe, deputy.”

“Customer service, huh?” Rick said under his breath as Bud moved away.

“Yeah. You’re a customer, and I _serviced_ you good.” Negan rocked back on his heels and regarded him as Rick snorted a helpless laugh into his hand. “Did you write down your number for us, Rick?”

Rick looked over at him, hand still on his mouth. “Why would you need my number?”

“Customer service satisfaction survey,” Negan said with an absolutely straight face, and Rick laughed again. Negan smiled at him, warm and genuine. His laughter pleased him almost as much as his thanks.

Rick was shaking his head. “I don’t think that’s real. I think you just want my number for yourself,” he said, eyes dancing.

Negan licked his lips, and he decided to drop the teasing facade. “I do, Rick. Do you wanna give it to me? You don’t fucking have to, but I’d…like it if you did.”

Rick blinked, catching the shift in his tone. “You already have it. It’s in your pocket,” he said, ducking his head.

Negan blinked at him and fumbled in the pockets of his jacket. He drew out a folded slip of paper and shook his head. “You sneaky bitch,” he murmured, shooting him a look. His eyes were still on the floor, and Negan slipped the paper back in his pocket and drew out the keys to the car. He stepped forward and put a hand on the small of Rick’s back. Rick looked up, startled, and Negan pressed the keys in his hand. “Moment of truth, darlin'.”

Rick walked to the driver’s side and slipped inside. Negan followed, standing beside him with his arms crossed. Rick reached out and slipped the key into the ignition. He paused, and his brow furrowed, anxiety suddenly hanging heavy over him.

Negan sighed and bent into the open door, reaching over him and putting his gloved hand over his. He locked his eyes on Rick’s as he twisted, turning the keys beneath Rick’s hand. The car roared to life beneath them, and Negan grinned at the relief that flooded Rick’s eyes. “You got no faith, Rick. I told you I would get you back on the road. Didn’t you fucking believe me? I - “

Rick wrapped one arm around his neck and covered his lips with his, kissing him hard enough to take his breath away. Negan braced one knee against the driver’s seat, head swimming. _Well, shit_. Rick pulled back slowly. “Thank you,” he breathed, and Negan was fully arrested in the moment, pinned by his eyes and the sight of his lips, still wet with the kiss.

“Any time, Georgia,” he said finally, when he had collected himself. He withdrew reluctantly from where he was leaning into the car and stepped back so that Rick could shut the door. He did, with a hesitant look in his eyes, like there was something left that he wanted to say. “See you around,” Negan said in a soft, insinuating murmur, dropping a wink at him as a smile curled the corner of his mouth.

He flushed immediately, buckling his seatbelt with his eyes glued to the steering wheel. “Yeah,” he replied shyly. “See you around.”

He watched him drive off until the car sank with the gently sloping hills, out of sight. He heard Bud’s heavy footsteps approach.

“Why didn’t you want that boy to pay upfront?” the man asked curiously.

“Because I don’t want you to charge him for the labor.”

“Uh- _huh_ ,” Bud replied, unamused. “Who’s paying for the labor, then?”

Negan rolled his eyes. “Me, jackass. Take it out of my fucking paycheck.” He could feel Bud’s incredulous stare on him. “What? His old lady died and left him with a couple of kids. He ain’t driving that shitty fucking antique for fun. I just…” He shrugged, staring down the road where the car had disappeared, trailing off.

Bud snorted beside him. “Well, what do you _fuckin_ ’ know. You do have a tiny little moth-eaten heart somewhere in there, kid.”

Negan turned towards him with a sarcastic smile, mentally subtracting the cases of beer he was going to buy him back down to one. “Fuck you, Bud. I have a totally normal-sized moth-eaten heart.” The man walked off, shaking his head, and Negan looked back towards the road. He reached into his pocket and ran his fingers over the folded slip of paper.

 _Not done with you, yet, Georgia_ , he thought. He turned back into the bustling garage, whistling as he strolled towards Bud’s office, intent on swiping another beer.

 


	2. Hold Me Just Like That

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Welp! *erases the one-shot tag* I guess this is a chaptered fic now! It'll likely be a while between chapters because of my schedule, so I do apologize for that. Anyway, let's do this!

The mid-afternoon sun struck Negan full in the face as he stepped outside the garage, and he squinted, shading his face with one gloved hand. It had been slow again that day. As much as Bud liked to harp on his supposed tendency towards dereliction of duty, they both knew it was generally the opposite that was true: Negan hated being completely idle. At least drinking and flirting with customers was doing _something_ , but he had already done enough of the first and didn’t feel inclined towards the second.

The latter had been true all week, and it had been a bit of a shock to him. A pretty blonde with a face and shoulders dappled with freckles had turned up earlier that day. She had her college-aged sister in tow, just as pretty and just as blonde, like the hopelessly lazy set-up of some back-room pornography. They were on a road trip, and they had a flat. Someone else had caught the job, but normally Negan would have been over there chatting them up before Pretty Blonde With Freckles could blink.

“You’re not gonna go talk to those girls?” Bud had asked him, open amusement in his voice.

Negan clicked his tongue. “Nah. Just takin’ in the view.”

Bud stared at him, puzzled. “You okay, kid? You got problems downstairs or somethin’?”

Negan nearly doubled over with laughter. “ _Christ_ , Bud. A stiff _breeze_ gets me at half-mast. Don’t lie awake at night worrying about my dick; it’s a-OK.”

“Boy, I didn’t ask for the specifics, so don’t inflict ‘em on me. If there’s three things I can rely on in this world, it’s death, taxes, and you chasin’ tail. You ain’t looked at anyone twice all week. Got me almost worried about you.”

Negan rolled his eyes at him. “That shit hasn’t changed, Bud, I just got someone on my mind.” As soon as the words left him, he startled, a little embarrassed at the inadvertent admission.

The good thing, the _great_ thing, about Bud was that he knew when to just let shit drop. “Is that so?” he said mildly before turning and walking off.

And there it was, in a nutshell. His relentless libido hadn’t been dampened; it had been redirected, and it had been a long-ass time since a single person had captured his entire attention like that.

Negan dug in his pocket and pulled out his phone, scrolling until he reached it. _Rick_.

It had been more than a week since the man had turned up in the garage with his busted carburetor and tired eyes, and Negan couldn’t get him out of his damn mind. The memories of their night together clung to him like some sweet scent, sometimes fading into the background and sometimes blossoming lushly and catching him unawares, invading his senses. He would slide into his bed after a long day and immediately be assaulted with the echoes of him: the feel of soft skin over hard muscle, the warm, slow drawl, and the sweet, trusting way he had yielded to his touch.

Needless to say, it always ended one way for him: coming hard into his hand with the image of Rick’s flushed face, blue eyes half-shut and lips wet and parted, burning behind his tightly shut eyelids.

 _You’ve got yourself one hell of an infatuation, numbnuts_ , he told himself, grinning as he scratched his stubbled cheek and stared down at the phone. Christ, he’d give anything to sink into that man’s tight, silken heat again. He thought about saying as much as he hit the “call” button and listened to the phone ring, but he reined himself in with an effort. He may have been handed a pretty good case of blue balls by the handsome stranger, but he didn’t think Officer Rick would appreciate him going full-on late-night eight-hundred number infomercial on him. Not at first, anyway.

The voicemail picked up. “This is Rick Grimes,” the message began, and as that honeyed drawl hit him, Negan felt his thighs clench. _Fuck_ , he thought resignedly. _Fuck, fuck, fuck, he’s got you right by the balls_. “Leave a message.” The phone blipped in his ear, signaling the start of the recording.

Negan licked his lips slowly. “You’ve been thinkin’ about me, haven’t you, Georgia?” he said finally, chuckling. He could picture the blue-eyed man the way he would look listening to his message - eyes wide, cheeks red, and damn it if the image didn’t make him hard. “I _know_ I’ve been thinkin’ about you.” He ended the call without looking, returning the phone to his pocket and rubbing his mouth. He stood out in the sun for a long while, the black leather of his jacket soaking it in and bringing a light sheen of sweat prickling over his face and chest. What had he said earlier about a stiff breeze bringing him to half-mast? An exaggeration, but apparently the two-sentence voicemail greeting of one Rick Grimes could fucking get him there. Negan scoffed at himself, marching through every mental cold-shower technique at his disposal.

When he turned back into the garage, he heard Bud call his name in the distance. He looked up and saw the older man standing in the door to his office, waving him over. He made his way to him, a wry smile on his lips. _Now what_?

“I want you to come down with me to the convention this weekend,” Bud said without preamble as Negan strolled into the office. “I could use you there, representing the garage.”

Negan blinked at him in confusion before tipping his head back and groaning. “What, the antique automobile shit? A bunch of old farts like you sitting around, drinking beer, and circle-jerking to a couple ancient hot-rods? What the fuck would you need me there for?”

“It’s networking, Negan,” Bud said patiently. “Networking leads to contracts. Contracts lead to business. Business leads to money. Money leads to happiness. Do I really have to spell it out for you, kid? Come on. You’re the only one in here that has half a damn brain in their head, which says something real depressing about my ability to attract quality employees. You know I want you to step up and run this fucking place someday, don’t you?”

Negan scratched the back of his head, feeling a faint tingle of guilt. “I know that, Bud.”

“Well, then it ain’t gonna kill you to spend a damn weekend in Atlanta talking to a bunch of old farts. Or to drink a little beer and - what the fuck are you grinning at, boy? I swear to god, you got more moods than all three of my ex-wives put together.”

Negan ran his tongue over his teeth. “Did you say ‘Atlanta’?” he crowed. He barked a laugh at Bud’s bewildered expression. “Should have fucking led with that, Bud. Sign me up.”

—

“You don’t mind pizza again, do you?” Rick asked, drumming his fingers on the steering wheel lightly as he glanced into the rearview mirror to check on Judith for the umpteenth time. She was singing quietly to herself, twisting a stuffed rabbit in her hands.

Carl snorted beside him. “Uh, dad? I love pizza, remember? Everyone does. Pizza’s awesome.”

Rick shot him a weak smile. “Right. I guess I’m the one that’s not happy about it. Third time this week. It’s just these late days at the station got me all - Judith! Judith, baby, don’t put that in your mouth, please? Spit that out, sugar.” Judith beamed at him, mouth full of wet paper from the envelope she somehow managed to get her tiny hands on.

Carl twisted around and gently took it from her, replacing it with her stuffed rabbit. He straightened, frowning at the damp, chewed paper. “I, uh…I think this was a bill.”

Rick stifled a groan, and Judith gave a very self-satisfied sounding bleat of laughter behind them. “At least tell me you eat something green every once in awhile at school,” he said, sighing.

Carl looked up at him. For a moment, all Rick saw was the black, triangular plastic cover over his right eye, and his stomach plunged. “Every once in awhile,” Carl agreed with a faint smile. “It’s fine, dad.”

“What’d you eat when Shane had you all the other day?”

Carl laughed. “Burgers. Sorry, dad.”

Rick blew out a breath. “I really need to make you a salad.”

“There was lettuce on the burger,” Carl said with an unrepentant shrug.

Rick glanced at him and then back at Judith in the rearview, and his love for them rose up in him unexpectedly and with such intensity that his eyes stung. He swallowed. “Okay. Pizza it is. But tomorrow, I’m making that salad.” He paused, considering. “If I manage to get to the grocery store,” he sighed, scratching his jaw.

The evening was chaotic as ever. The familiar flurry of activity commenced almost immediately: struggling to feed Judith, who vastly preferred finger-painting with her food to eating it, nagging Carl to do his homework, putting Judith down for a nap, comforting Judith after she woke up wailing mid-way through her nap until she drifted to sleep again in his arms, checking on Carl to find that he hadn’t touched his homework… He realized with a start as he was washing the dishes that he hadn’t actually changed out of his uniform. It was hardly the first time he had gone the entire day without finding enough time to do even that for himself.

He trudged slowly up the steps and stood in the darkened hallway, listening. _Is that it_? he thought wearily. _Are they actually asleep_? Well, Carl wouldn’t be asleep. Rick knew better than that; he would be tapping away on his phone. But Judith was in her bed, the dishes were washed, and everything was more or less squared away for tomorrow. He could actually sleep. He plodded into his room with a sigh, running his hands slowly over his face. He began to unbutton his shirt, and his wrist brushed the phone in his front pocket. He pulled it out and noted with some surprise that he had missed a call. It wasn’t a number he recognized, and whoever it was had left a voicemail. He tapped it and brought the phone to his ear.

“You’ve been thinkin’ about me, haven’t you, Georgia?” A low, sultry chuckle flowed out at him from the phone, and his skin tingled like the dark-haired man’s hands were actually sliding over him. “I _know_ I’ve been thinkin’ about you.” The message ended with a click. Rick stood with the phone still held to his ear, staring into the dark of the room, feeling the heat spread across his face and between his thighs.

He had definitely been thinking about him. He found himself thinking about him with alarming frequency and at inopportune times.

His mind drifted back to that night, to the memory of being sprawled on his back with his thighs apart, Negan fully sheathed inside of him. _You are so fucking gorgeous_ , he had said, and even now his cheeks burned with the shy delight the words had sparked in him. Of course, he often wondered if he had _meant_ any bit of that, or anything he had said to him that night. Wasn’t that the sort of thing you were supposed to say to people you had sex with in motel rooms? The eventual outcome of all that sweet-talking had been greatly favorable to the man in the leather jacket, after all.

Rick chewed on his lip for a moment. _That ain’t it_ , he insisted to himself. Negan had been too kind to him for it all to be a ploy to get him into bed. Hadn’t he turned down the offer of more that next morning to fuss over the car for him? He had _liked_ him. And Rick had liked him right back. His fingers hovered over the phone hesitantly before tapping the “call” button. The phone rang twice, and Rick felt his palms get moist. _For Christ’s sake, Rick_ , he scolded himself, but it did nothing to ease the sudden flutter of nerves. He was about to hang up when the call was answered, mid-ring.

“Rick Grimes, as I live and _breathe_ ,” Negan purred into the phone.

Rick found himself smiling, an immediate flush blooming on his cheeks as the man’s deep voice, deeper with its deliberate sensuousness now, poured into his ear. “Hi, Negan.”

“Hi, yourself. Did you get my message, beautiful?”

The compliment flustered him completely, and it was a few moments of confused silence before he could answer. “Yeah. Yeah, I did.”

“Well?” Negan asked, a teasing lilt to the word.

“Huh?” Rick was still off-balance from Negan’s immediate, easy flirtation. He had been speaking to the man for less than fifteen seconds, and his face was already on fire.

“Well, am I right? You thinkin’ about me?”

Rick ducked his head and rubbed at his jaw. “I called, didn’t I?”

Negan gave an amused chuckle. “That you did, Georgia. You’re blushin’, right?”

Rick ran a hand over his hot face. “No,” he said archly, and he couldn’t hold back a laugh at the bald-faced lie.

“Ooh, you fucking _liar_ ,” Negan hooted. “I’ll bet you’re red from your forehead to your goddamn balls. Don’t _act_ like I haven’t seen that shit happen with my own motherfuckin’ eyes.”

“I don’t know what you’re talkin’ about. And anyway, you can’t prove it.”

Negan gave a low whistle. “You got me there, lawman. We got a two-state buffer for your _lies_ goin’ on right now. If I was down there, all cozied up with you, I could take a look myself. See just how far that pretty, red flush had made it.” It had made it well down his chest, as matter of fact. “Speakin’ of, I’m gonna be in Atlanta next weekend. Business shit.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. Meet me there.”

Rick’s breath caught in his throat. “What?”

“Meet me there, darlin’. In Atlanta. It’s some fucking…antique car thing. I have to meet a few people, shake a few hands, but otherwise I’m going to have all this time to kill, and I’d like to spend it licking you like a lollipop.”

Another laugh bubbled out of him at that, and he covered his face with his hand. “Negan…”

“Hm? What? You like the sound of that, Georgia? I know you do.”

Rick could hear the grin in the other man’s voice. He _did_ like the sound of that. He squirmed, suddenly very aware of how confining his uniform pants were as his cock began to awaken. “I, uh…” he trailed off, desperately searching for something to say.

Negan caught the strain in his voice and leapt on it. “ _Honey_ , are you getting fucking _hard_ over there listenin’ to me?” He chuckled knowingly.

Rick jerked at that and nearly dropped the phone. It felt like the man was goddamn _omniscient_. He recovered after a moment. “I’ll see what I can do,” he said hastily, avoiding the mocking accusation completely. “I’d have to figure out something for the kids.”

Negan paused. “I hope you do,” he said finally. “I want to see you.”

The honesty disarmed him more than the brazen lechery. “I wanna see you, too,” Rick replied softly. “You…you were right. I’ve been thinkin’ about you. A lot.” He froze, and something like horror tingled through him. That had been far, far too revelatory. _You don’t know him_ , he scolded himself. _He’s a stranger_. _What are you doin’, moonin’ over him_? _You fifteen again_? The silence on the other end of the phone stretched on, and he felt faintly ill with apprehension.

“Rick _Grimes_ ,“ Negan drawled out finally, and there was something in his tone - something soft yet hungry all at the same time - that turned Rick’s legs to water. A faint wail reached him, and he jerked his head towards the source. _Judith_. He rose immediately to his feet, her cry a magnet.

“I have to go. My daughter just woke up. I’ll…let you know. About Atlanta.”

“You do that, Georgia,” he said briskly, and the call ended with a soft beep. Rick dropped the phone on the bed slowly, turning to head towards Judith’s room as he turned the invitation over and over again in his mind.

—

In the following days, Negan tried his best to put the blue-eyed man from his mind. His best was far from good enough. His frustrated yearning for the man announced itself stridently in every quiet moment he had, leaving him on edge. He nearly got into a fist-fight with one of the other mechanics, an unpleasant, dark-haired man by the name of Dave who Negan barely tolerated on a good day. Something about the guy rubbed him the wrong way. He couldn’t say exactly how it happened, but one moment Dave was saying something to a group of them and the next Negan was being barely restrained by Simon and Mark. He shook them off and stalked out of the garage, trying to clear his head.

No, he was not dealing with the suspense particularly well, and there was no real surprise there. He was an aggressor by nature, and being made to wait ran counter to every instinct he had.

He emerged from his shower later that night to find a voicemail on his phone from the man he had been actively trying not to think about, and his heart gave an unfamiliar flutter.

“I can do it. Meet you there. In Atlanta, I mean. Next weekend.” There was a pause on the other end of the line. “This is…uh, this is Rick. Rick Grimes.”

Negan covered his face and laughed soundlessly. _Fucking cute_ , he thought, grinning. _I’m going to fuck his fucking brains out_.

—

Rick fiddled with the cuffs on his jacket nervously in the dark, window-lined hall of the old hotel. It was a grand building in an older part of the city, all antebellum-inspired architecture and heavy columns, and it had surprised Rick a little when he had pulled up to it. The hotel was overflowing with guests, and Rick had fled to the quietest part of the building he could find.

Someone was approaching him from behind with slow, echoing footfalls, and he felt an immediate heat ignite in his stomach and shiver up his spine. _That’s him_ , he thought, which is why he wasn’t completely startled when strong hands gripped him high up on his arms and dragged him sideways, between the curtained windows. He was spun around, and then all he knew was Negan invading all of his senses, lips over his, body pressing him into the wall. He clung to him and tried not to lose his breath under the assault of his lips.

When Negan finally drew his head back, he was panting. “Hi,” he breathed.

Rick swallowed, pinned by his searing gaze. He caressed the dark, stubbled cheek and saw that his hand was trembling. “Hi,” he responded faintly.

Negan’s dazzling grin flashed down at him before he dove forward and captured his lips again. Rick reached up and clasped the back of his head, fingers clutching the dark strands. He wasn’t sure how long they stayed like that, mouths hungry for each other. The thick velvet curtains flanking them billowed faintly as the hot summer air lapped against them. “Fuck,” Negan breathed against him as Rick drew his lower lip into his mouth. “I could throw you over my fucking shoulder and carry you up to my room right now.”

Rick pulled back and stared at him, face immediately burning hot and red. “Don’t even think about it. You’re not carryin’ me anywhere.”

Negan laughed at his expression. “No? Well, I was gonna ask you to dinner first, anyway. I’ve got twenty or so old fogies in the hotel bar that I’m supposed to _network_ with, Bud says. Come with me.”

Rick blinked at him, a trifle flustered. “You want me to…”

“Yeah,” Negan interrupted him with a grin. “Be my date. I want some arm candy.” He slid his hand down Rick’s back and grabbed a handful of ass, squeezing.

Rick laughed in spite of himself, turning his head. “All right, fine, but try to keep your hands to yourself.”

Negan tilted his head, and his smile was nearly predatory. “No promises, darlin’.”

—

The hotel’s restaurant was noisy and crowded, as expected. Negan clasped his hand and led him forward, weaving through the crowd.

“Bud,” Negan called, and a man with iron-grey hair turned towards them. Rick recognized the name and the man, and he gave him a friendly smile.

Bud’s eyes lit on him, and his brow creased. “Son, do I know…? Wait, weren’t you up at the garage a week or so ago? Late seventies Ford what broke down on the highway, wasn’t it?”

Rick nodded, holding his hand out. “Yes, sir. That was me.” Bud shook his hand, and his eyes, suddenly knowing and amused, slid over to Negan. Rick felt his face get hot.

“Nice to see you again, son.” He tipped the bottle of beer he was holding towards Negan. “Boy, I got someone I want you to meet.”

As Bud turned away from them, Negan briefly bent his head down to Rick’s ear. “Here we fucking go,” he murmured, and Rick shivered as his breath danced along the shell of his ear.

Bud led them towards a man sitting hunched over at the bar. He slapped him on the shoulder, and the man gave a grunt. “This is my cousin, Jim. Used to work at Axel’s. He’s starting up his own place down here.”

Jim was tall and lanky, with a tumble of greasy black hair. His expression was faintly sullen, and he was staring into his beer as if he were reading something in the bubbling head. He lifted his eyes up slowly to them, not speaking a word.

Negan steeled himself and smiled gamely at the man. “Your cousin, huh? Well, nice to meet you, cousin Jim. How’s it hangin’?”

Jim blinked up at him, furrowing his brow. “Okay,” he grunted.

“Going into business on your own, huh?”

Jim took a long swallow of his beer. “A-yuh,” he said and lapsed back into silence.

Negan gave a short bark of laughter, unable to help himself. “All right. Good fucking talk, buddy. I feel like we’re really _networking_ here, don’t you?” Negan shot Bud an insolent look, grinning. “Guess I’ll see you around…Lurch, was it?” Negan asked, a sly smile tugging at the corner of his lips.

The dark haired man blinked at him. “No, it’s Jim,” he said, Negan’s mocking sailing straight over his head.

Rick pinched Negan’s side sharply and gave him a _stop it now_ look he usually reserved for Carl.

Negan shot him a glance, amused and unrepentant. “My mistake, Jimmy.”

“All right,” Bud said with a resigned smile, waving them away. “Go sit the fuck down and get something to eat, then, asshole. The other boys are all at the table, and everyone’s pretty much three sheets to the wind already. Maybe you’ll have some better luck with your fuckin’ jokes over there.”

Negan led Rick away, chuckling. As they approached the long table Bud had pointed them towards, a welcoming roar sounded at the sight of Negan. Rick was pressed into handshake after handshake, and when he was finally able to settle into a seat with a beer in front of him, his hand ached from the enthusiastic squeezes. He drank, ate, and let Negan draw him into the loud, drunken conversation of the men and women around them, and soon he found that he was actually enjoying himself. He so rarely took any kind of time exclusively for himself, and he couldn’t even remember the last time he was out with a group, playdates for Judith excluded. It had to be before Lori had died.

He was flooded suddenly with the bittersweet memories of when his timid courtship of her had begun - she had almost immediately taken things in hand in that calm, capable way she had, and he had been more than grateful to let her. Just like he was grateful to let Negan do the same, although Rick thought the similarities in their handling of him ended right there.

They had both taken the reins, sure, but where Lori was cool and even, Negan was wildfire. He had consumed him, burned him to cinders that night, but he had done so with an exquisite care and only after Rick had given him full permission. That was another similarity, actually - Lori had been careful with him, too. She was forever delicately probing the contours of his feelings, trying to draw them out, draw him closer, but even as she did, she was careful with him and his natural skittish reticence. _I need that_. _I need people to be careful_ , he thought sadly. He gazed up at Negan, who was in animated conversation with the men seated immediately around him, and he felt the gravitational pull of him even through the distress the memory of his grief had conjured.

Negan laughed boomingly beside him at something a grizzled-looking older man with a bushy, Santa Claus beard said in his ear before turning back to Rick. He caught him staring, and Rick dropped his eyes, flustered. Negan draped an arm around his shoulders and gave him an affectionate squeeze, and Rick felt himself flush with shy pleasure. He felt eyes on them, and he looked up to find Bud gazing at them across the table where he had taken his seat, an amused smile on his lips.

“Lemme ask you something, boy,” he called to Negan, tipping his bottle at him. “How do you get a nice kid like that, a _cop_ , for fuck’s sake, to go for a raging asshole like you? I can’t figure it.”

Negan’s head rocked back, and he nearly howled with laughter. “What the _fuck_ , you ancient piece of shit. The fuck is that supposed to mean? I’m a perfect fucking gentleman. Tell him, baby.”

Rick flushed under the sudden attention. “He, uh…’gentleman’ might be an exaggeration.”

Bud slapped the table and guffawed, and Negan leaned into the side of his face, lips on his ear. “You fucking brat,” he said, grinning. “I should bend you over my knee for that.”

Rick shoved at him playfully, and in that moment, with the easy laughter surrounding him, the weight that he dragged behind him every moment of his life lifted like a balloon. He darted his head up to peck Negan’s cheek, and his dark eyes were warm as they met his. He leaned down to Rick’s ear and was about to speak again, but a shout rose up from the direction of the bar.

Bud groaned. “That’s fucking Jim. That boy can’t hold his liquor. He’s probably starting a fight with some goddamn peckerwood over there.”

Negan rolled his eyes and stood. “Christ. I’ll go take care of Lurch. What’s that dude’s fucking problem, Bud?” He laid a hand on Rick’s shoulder and squeezed briefly. “Sit tight, darlin’.”

Rick watched him disappear into the crowd towards the raised voices. He felt Bud’s gaze on him and turned towards the older man.

“He’s a good boy,” Bud said softly. “It’s nice to see him stick with someone for once. Been more’n twenty years now since she passed on, but it’s been hard on him. That’s why he carries on the way he does with people.”

Rick stared at him, lost. “What do you mean? Since who passed on?”

“Lucille, of course. Twenty years, goddamn. Seems like yesterday.”

 _He’s drunk_ , Rick realized. _He’s drunk, and he doesn’t realize that I don’t know what he’s saying_. A memory rose up in his mind: lying on his back beneath Negan in that motel bed, tracing the tattoos that sprawled across his broad chest. One of them looped in delicate script beneath his collarbone - _Lucille_. He looked down at his hands for a moment, and guilt flooded him. He felt he had peeked in at something not meant for him, but he was too curious to close the door. “You said he…you’re glad he’s sticking with someone?” That was clumsy, and Bud’s eyes grew somber as he realized his mistake. Rick pressed on anyway. “I guess he has a lot of dates, then?”

Bud shook his head slowly. “I’m an old man what talks too much,” he said softly. “You should really ask him about that, son.” He looked up, over Rick’s shoulder. “Speak of the devil.”

Rick turned, and Negan was striding through the crowd, leading a stumbling Jim by the arm. “Here’s your kin, Bud,” he said wryly as he deposited the swaying man in a chair. “I think you should let him dry out a little.” He slid back into the chair next to Rick, wrapping an arm around him again.

As Rick turned towards him, he could just see the top edge of it, black ink looping up and diving back down again into his white teeshirt where it sat low on his toned chest. They were alike in that way, and sympathy flowed through him so earnestly and hotly that it burned the uneasy questions percolating through him away. “Let’s…let’s go,” Rick said with sudden urgency.

He looked down at him in surprise, and Rick met his dark hazel eyes. They froze for a moment like that, eyes locked, and Negan’s gaze heated up until it felt like it might scorch him. “Yeah,” he said quietly. “Let’s fucking go, Georgia. I think it’s past our bed time.”

—

Negan was on him as soon as the door clicked shut behind them, practically tearing at the buttons on Rick’s shirt and burying his face in his neck. Rick clung to his arms for a moment, head spinning, before he slid his hands beneath his jacket and ran them over the hard planes of muscle. Rick leaned into him, putting his lips at his ear.

“How can you wear that thing in this heat?” he whispered, smiling.

Negan snorted as he worked the last button on Rick’s shirt and shoved it over his shoulders and down his arms, letting it fall to the floor. He seized his hips and yanked him flush against him, turning his face into his. “What’d I tell you?” he murmured against Rick’s lips. “I wear it because it looks _cool_ , Georgia. Leather jacket. The coolest fucking jacket there is, end of story.”

Rick tried to kiss him, but Negan darted his head down and nipped hard at his throat instead, suckling immediately over the bitten flesh. Rick gasped, and his hips moved against Negan as if they had a mind of their own.

“Too much?” Negan asked, lips against his throat, and Rick could hear by the mischievous lilt in his voice that he knew perfectly well that it was _not_ too much. Not with the way Rick was grinding against him in response like a teenager.

“No, but don’t you dare leave a mark,” Rick said in the most stern tone he could manage under the circumstances.

Negan chuckled, and Rick could feel it vibrating through his chest where it pressed against his. “What about where no one can see, Georgia? I can think of a few places.”

Rick laughed and clutched the back of his dark head. “We’ll see.”

Negan kissed him hard, pulling him further into the room and towards the neatly made bed. He stripped off his jacket and pushed it into Rick’s bare chest, stepping back and flashing him a devilish grin. “Put it on.”

Rick blinked at him, and a slow smile curled his lips. “You like seein’ me in this,” he said, a teasing accusation in his tone.

“Sure do, baby. Gives you an edge.”

Rick tilted his head at him, eyes narrowing in mild challenge. “You think I need an edge?”

“Fuck, I don’t know. I guess you have one under that ‘yes sir, no ma’am, aw _shucks_ , can I bring y’all some sweet tea’ Southern charm shit - “

“I’ve never said…I don’t say ‘aw, shucks,’” Rick insisted, eyes flashing with that combination of annoyance and amusement Negan was getting very used to seeing from him. “Jesus.”

Negan grinned at him, tongue between his teeth. Rick eyes shifted away as he pulled the jacket on, flushing. He threw his arms out wordlessly - _see_? _Here I am, wearing your jacket_. Negan lifted a finger into the air and made a slow, twirling motion. “Give me a spin, baby.”

Rick rolled his eyes at him, and Negan was sure he was going to refuse. Instead, he turned slowly and looked back at him over his shoulder. “Is that what _ya’ll_ wanted to see?” he said in a mockingly exaggerated drawl.

Negan stared at him, eyes darkening, and Rick was suddenly aware of his own arousal uncomfortably swollen against the confining fabric of his pants. “You know what?” Negan’s voice was more breath than sound.

Rick gave him a faint smile, his eyes clouding over with lust. “What?”

“I’m gonna fuck you in that thing. Take your fucking clothes off. _Except_ for that.”

“ _What_?” Rick said with an incredulous laugh, but Negan had already closed the small space between them again. The dark-haired man’s arms went around him, and his hands suddenly seemed to be everywhere. Rick gasped, eyes drifting half-shut, leaning back against him.

“Come on, Georgia. Don’t tell me it doesn’t sound hot,” he rumbled in his ear.

Rick nodded, unable to speak, and Negan walked him forward until he was pressed into the wall. He seemed to strip Rick in the blink of an eye, getting him just as he wanted him - not wearing a stitch except for that damned jacket.

Negan kissed the back of his neck as he fumbled behind him, and Rick heard the soft click of a bottle cap flipping. “You still on board with this, honey?” he asked, voice soft and strained behind him.

“Yes,” Rick sighed, splaying his palms out on the wall in front of him. He sighed again as cool, slick fingers stroked over him, teasing his entrance with gentle pressure before slipping in him. Rick moaned, and Negan’s lips moved soothingly over his neck.

“All right?” he whispered against flushed, damp skin.

“Better…than that,” Rick replied through his hitching breaths. He felt the answering smile at his neck.

Negan’s fingers worked in him searchingly, and Rick’s hands curled against the wall as if his fingers sought purchase there. He whimpered, cheek pressed against the cool plaster. A jolt shot through him as Negan’s fingers found what they were searching for, and he muffled a ragged cry into the wall, legs shaking beneath him.

Negan gave a pleased hum behind him. “Found it,” he sang playfully into Rick’s ear before he began stroking over the spot firmly, over and over again.

Rick writhed against the wall, breath torn right from his chest. His legs nearly gave from under him, but a strong arm snaked around his waist and held him steady. He bowed his head, palms scrabbling against the wall, and he let out a pitiful-sounding, sobbing breath.

“I know,” Negan breathed behind him, trailing soft kisses from his leather-clad shoulder up his neck to his ear. “I know it’s good, honey.”

The fingers left him, and Rick made a soft, bereft noise.

“I know,” Negan repeated, voice a gentle caress at his ear. He wrapped the other arm around Rick’s chest and half-walked, half-carried him to the bed.

A hand on Rick’s shoulder guided him down, and he found himself bent at the waist over the mattress. He dropped his face into his arms, the scent of the jacket’s leather immediately embracing him, and he felt the burning kiss of his flush touch his face at the exposure, the vulnerability of the position. He listened to the soft rustle of fabric behind him as Negan stripped and tried to control his racing heart.

“Don’t you look cute with your ass in the air,” Negan teased behind him.

He laughed weakly into the bedspread. “Shut up, Negan.”

The other man chuckled, and he moved behind Rick again, bare thighs hot against his. “That’s fucking rude, baby, goddamn. What happened to your manners? You want me to put my dick inside you or what, Georgia? You better find those nice fucking manners again and ask me right.”

Rick felt his face get ten degrees hotter, and he shot a glare over his shoulder. “Why don’t _you_ try out some manners? Beg me, Negan. Come on. Beg me to let you inside.” The complete and utter shock on the other man’s face was the most deliciously gratifying thing Rick had seen in some time, and he smiled up at him impishly.

“You tryin’ to turn my shit back on me, Rick? Aren’t you just fucking _feisty_?” The blue-eyed man beneath him was a quick study, _that_ was for goddamn sure. Negan’s legs actually felt weak.

Rick rose slowly up on his arms. “Come on, Negan,” he said softly, and he ground his hips back against him slowly, to Negan’s utter amazement. “I’m wearin’ the jacket, aren’t I? Just like you asked.” He smiled, and there was just a hint of the shyness that he was fighting against there on the curve of his full lips. “Is there somethin’ else you wanna ask?”

Negan was quiet for a long moment, and he saw apprehension rise up in those lovely eyes. He stroked his hip reassuringly while he fucking _collected_ himself in the wake of this unexpected and intriguing turn of events. “Rick Grimes,” he began slowly, “won’t you please, pretty _please_ allow me to fuck your fucking brains out, you walking, talking wet dream?”

Rick shuddered as Negan slid his cock slowly over his entrance, the control he had briefly won unraveling swiftly. “Yes, I will allow you that,” he replied hoarsely.

Negan grinned, eyes falling half-shut. He pressed against Rick, and the sensitive head of his cock nosed into the soft, hot flesh. “I think you’ll find you made the right decision, Rick,” he growled softly above him. He slowly sheathed himself. Rick had begun to reply, but the words melted and ran over each other as pleasure mastered him, and Negan couldn’t pick out a single intelligible phrase. Negan paused, halfway inside the other man, and squeezed his hips beneath his hands. “You all right, baby?”

Rick answered him with a soft, low whine from deep in his throat, and Negan shuddered, pulling the other man’s hips back so that he sank further on his cock. “ _Ne_ gan,” he hiccuped into the bedspread.

“Christ, Rick,” Negan ground out. “The way you say my fucking name. I think I could come just listening to you say my name in that hot-ass Southern drawl.” He chuckled softly as he pressed further into him, watching their joining with hungry interest.

Rick gripped the bedspread beneath him, mouth open against the fabric as he panted, his focus narrowed down to the way his body stretched to accommodate the hard, thick length. This angle was letting Negan in deeper than last time, and Rick found that he _liked_ that very much, _liked_ the way his body trembled around the invasion, almost seeming to resist every time the other man pushed in further before surrendering to his advance. He bottomed out in him, and Rick closed his eyes, feeling himself throb around Negan’s cock.

“Honey,” Negan said hoarsely above him, “you feel fucking _divine_.”

Rick smiled into the bedspread and made a soft, pleased sound in his throat for the other man. A shudder went through Negan at that, but he held still, and Rick could feel the tense restraint in him. He lifted his head to look over his shoulder at him. “Stop being so careful,” Rick said, and even though his eyes were hazy and Negan had him ass up and stuffed with every inch of his dick, his tone commanded. “Give it to me the way you want to.”

“What do you mean, ‘the way I want to’?” Negan demanded, grinning. “How the hell do you know?”

Rick smiled slyly at him over his shoulder. “I know,” he said softly. He spread his legs wider and pillowed his face into his arms. “Do what you want,” he sighed. “Do whatever you want.”

Negan swore, feeling his cock ache at the words. He withdrew almost completely from him before plunging back deep, and Rick gave a soft, moaning cry into his arms, his back arching. The sound was mouth-watering, and Negan immediately set about drawing it from him again and again. _You burn this shit into your fucking mind, Negan_ , he ordered himself, eyes feverishly roaming the man jerking and shuddering beneath him. Yes, this was exactly what he had fucking wanted: Rick wrapped in his jacket, face down, with his naked hips high in the air in offering as Negan slammed into his smooth, slick, yielding heat.

“ _Negan_ ,” Rick wailed, hands fisting tightly in the thick bedspread beneath him.

Every part of Negan shuddered in answer to the raw need in his cry. His long fingers squeezed the soft flesh of Rick’s hip, sliding one palm to the small of his back to urge him to arch it, opening him up more. The sobbing gasp beneath him told him that Rick found that very agreeable, indeed.

“That’s right, honey,” he said, and did that shaking, breathless voice even belong to him? “I’m gonna ride you _hard_ tonight. You said I could, remember?” Negan wasn’t sure whether the blue-eyed man was actually trying to answer him or not, but he was making the sweetest noises beneath him, and Negan found himself bending over him and whispering a soft, soothing near-chant in reply, “I know, I know, I know.”

He managed to hold out until Rick was shaking and moaning his release beneath him before he let himself slip off the edge he was balancing on so precariously. Negan felt out of his mind from the raw surrender of it, the way every ounce of strength left him like smoke into air while he spilled into Rick, fiercely enjoying the possessive thrill that gave him. He was thankful that he at least had the presence of mind to collapse beside rather than onto Rick when his shaking legs finally did give out. He lay on his back, panting raggedly as he tried to focus on the man next to him, whose face was still pressed full into the mattress. He reached out weakly and squeezed a handful of ass, and Rick gave a faint chuckle.

Rick turned his head, one blue eye peeking at him from the rumpled bedspread. “This,” he tugged the collar of the jacket, “is what they call a fetish.”

Negan laughed, moving his hand caressingly over Rick’s backside. “Yeah, what can I fucking say. I guess I got a _fetish_ for you in my jacket. Know why?” he continued, before he could stop himself. “Because it’s like you’re all mine when you’re wearin’ it, beautiful.” He watched with hot satisfaction as Rick pinked up at that.

Rick pushed himself closer, wrapping an arm around Negan’s waist and pillowing his head on his shoulder. “Jesus,” he sighed, a note of playful reproach in his voice, “movin’ around hurts.”

“Oh, honey, you _asked_ for it, remember? Don’t start that ‘Negan, you brute,’ Scarlett O’Hara shit _now_. I seem to remember you singin’ a different tune when I bent you over - ‘ooh, Negan, fuck me as hard as you can, ooh, Negan, ride me like a p-“

Rick interrupted this monologue, that was indeed being delivered in a high, breathy, Scarlett O’Hara drawl, with a sharp bite to his shoulder. “You need a muzzle,” Rick said matter-of-factly as Negan yelped and then shook with surprised laughter.

“Careful,” Negan softly, caught in the magnetic pull of the other man’s bright-eyed gaze, “you start up with that kinky shit, and you’ll get me goin’ again, Scarlett.”

Rick gave a groaning chuckle. “The only place we’re goin’ is the shower, and then I have to do something about the goddamned mess we made.” He shifted his hips and felt the sticky cling of fabric beneath him. “Ugh. We need soda water or somethin’.”

“Really, Martha Stewart? It’s a hotel. This shit is all getting washed.”

Rick rose to his knees and peeled off the jacket, tossing it aside. “Come on,” he said, smiling and tugging Negan’s arm.

The shower was welcome. The hot steam soothed spent muscles, and Negan took in the trusting way Rick relaxed back against him, head lolling on his shoulder as he stood in the cascade of cleansing water with something like awe, sliding his hands slowly up and down his sides. A distant alarm was sounding in his mind - _you fucking idiot_ , he thought wearily at himself again, but the confused apprehension couldn’t touch him where he was. He kissed the soaked curls at Rick’s temple and let his eyes drift shut.

—

“Are you fucking serious right now?” Negan stared with undisguised amusement from the door to the bathroom, a towel slung low around his hips.

Rick, clad again in his boxers to Negan’s disappointment, was rubbing at the soiled bedspread with a damp hand towel, and he shot an impatient, embarrassed glance over his shoulder. “I _know_ the linens get washed, Negan, but that’s no reason to leave ‘em in this shape. Don’t you feel even a little bit sorry for the person that has to walk in here and deal with this after we leave?”

“Saint Rick,” Negan murmured in gentle mocking. “How about that. I’ve never put my dick in a real bonafide _saint_ before.”

Rick sat back on his heels with an half-annoyed, half-amused snort and was about to respond when his phone began to ring in the pocket of his discarded pants. He fumbled for it. “I have to take this,” he said, brow creasing as he stared at down at the name flashing across the screen.

“Sure, darlin’,” Negan said with a yawn, turning away and stretching his arms above his head.

Rick watched him, taking in the way his muscles undulated as his arms moved. Another ring brought him back to himself, and he stood up and turned away, flushing. “Hey, Maggie,” he said softly after he had answered the phone. “Everything okay over there?”

“Everything’s fine, Rick, but Judy woke up, and I’m havin’ a hard time gettin’ her to go back down. Any ideas?”

“Chocolate milk,” he said instantly. “Just a little, warmed up. Give her the bottle to hold, and she’ll be out in about twenty minutes.”

“Okay. We’ll see you tomorrow. Carl’s here, let me hand the phone over. Oh…he has the milk. Did you get that while I was callin’?” Maggie laughed into the phone. “Shoot. Why didn’t you say anything? All right, here he is.”

Rick smiled to himself. Carl had a sixth sense when it came to his little sister.

“Hey, dad. Everything’s fine. Judy woke up the way she does sometimes. I got her bottle.”

“Thanks for lookin’ out, Carl,” he said softly.

“Yup. See you later.”

The call ended, and he pressed a hand to his forehead. He felt pride mingled with guilt as he always did when Carl showed an ability to care for his baby sister so beyond his years. A fourteen-year-old shouldn’t have to know so much, be such an _adult_ , but his childhood had been cut short by tragedy. Rick’s thoughts were interrupted by warm hands at his bare waist.

“What’s wrong, darlin’?” Negan murmured in his ear.

“Nothin’,” he answered softly, and Negan huffed, his breath fanning against the side of his face and causing a few stray curls to flutter.

“Bullshit. Your kids okay?”

Rick turned in his arms to face him, touched he had asked about them. “Yeah, they’re fine.”

Negan cocked his head to the side and smiled. “But you’re worried about ‘em anyway, huh?”

Rick smiled sheepishly. “Always. Joys of bein’ a parent.”

Negan leaned forward and kissed his lips lightly. “Pour you a drink?” he murmured.

“Sure,” Rick replied, a little puzzled. He hadn’t noticed any bottles out in the room.

Negan flashed his grin at him before turning to retrieve a brown paper bag on a nearby dresser. “Nothing but the best gas station Jack for you, baby,” he smirked, pouring the amber liquid into a water glass as Rick laughed helplessly. Negan handed him the glass and led him to the couch, tugging him close as soon as he sat down. He clinked his glass against Rick’s and took a long swallow.

Rick followed suit, the liquor burning his tongue and throat. “My son, he’s always tellin’ me I worry too much.”

Negan laughed. “Baby, you _do_ worry too much. We just fucking met, and I could tell you that.” He slowly kneaded Rick’s shoulder, the tension in the muscles there underlining his point.

Rick smiled and stared into his drink, swirling it slowly in the tall glass. “ He, uh…he lost an eye.” He was surprised to hear himself say it, but not overly so. Something about the man seem to compel him to speak his most painful secrets, the ones that lay like daggers in his heart. Like what had happened with Shane. He shoved that thought from his mind, hard. “Happened earlier this year. That’s part of the reason why it’s hard for me, you know. Bein’ away from them.”

“Holy shit,” Negan said, his tone serious. “No kidding? Poor kid.” He wrapped his arm tightly around Rick’s shoulder and pulled him in closer. “How’s he dealing with that shit?”

Rick leaned into his warmth with a grateful sigh. “Sometimes I think he’s dealing with it too well. He’s gotten so old for his age. He’s only fourteen. I wish he would let himself be a kid. Cry, say it’s not fair. Get angry.”

Negan grunted, moving his hand into Rick’s hair. “Too stoic, huh? Powers through shit when he really should just let someone take care of him? I _wonder_ where he gets it from. What a goddamn, motherfucking mystery. Angela Lansbury couldn’t solve _this_ shit.”

Rick groaned and shoved at him. “Yeah, I get it. He’s like me.”

Negan chuckled and set his empty glass on the coffee table. “How’d he lose the eye?”

Rick swallowed, looking down. Of course he would ask - Rick had opened the door for it. “It’s a long story,” he said softly. He could feel Negan’s eyes on him, and he hoped the moment would pass.

“You got a lot of long stories in you, don’t you?” Negan said finally, his tone unreadable. His fingers trailed over his shoulder and dipped down to the rough scar beneath. “Like this one right here.”

Rick swallowed and stared into his glass, feeling something akin to panic rise up in him. The last thing he wanted to do right now was to go back into that memory. He tried several times to come up with something to say, but the words stuck in his throat.

Negan frowned, sensing the distress in him. “Baby, relax. Relax. We don’t have to fuckin’ talk about it.” He rubbed his shoulders and back, and Rick melted into it, closing his eyes. Negan’s other hand slid over his jaw, tilting Rick’s head up with a light touch. “Honey, you okay bein’ here? It’s not like you’re stranded this time.”

Rick opened his eyes and met his soft gaze, feeling a shy affection blossom in his chest. “I’m okay,” he whispered. “I’m sorry. All I do is talk about the hard things in my life, and you…” he trailed off, reaching up and tracing the swirling, dipping lines of the tattoo beneath his collarbone. The name of someone beloved, someone dead.

“It’s all right, Georgia. You tell me all your troubles. I can listen.” He caught Rick’s hand on his chest and lifted it to his lips, kissing the knuckles lightly. It was the barest brush of his lips, but it brought Rick’s arousal back, aching and throbbing between his legs. Negan glanced down, and his eyes were sly when they returned to his. “You gonna finish that drink, baby?”

Rick held his eyes and swallowed the rest of the whiskey in a single gulp.

Negan took the glass from him and set it aside, not breaking their locked gaze. He cupped Rick’s cheek with one hand and bent his lips to his. Their mouths met, wet and urgent. Rick made an immediate, needy sound that embarrassed him a little, trying to press closer to Negan’s solid warmth. Negan gripped one of his thighs and pulled it over his, and the angle allowed them to grind their cloth-covered erections against each other. Rick moaned into the other man’s mouth, and he felt him smirk against his lips.

Rick felt the barest prickle of embarrassed pique - damn it, the dark-haired man had him at a disadvantage, and he _knew_ it. Rick had enjoyed every second of Negan’s easy possession of his body, but he wasn’t an _utter_ shrinking violet; it had just been a long time since anyone had touched him, held him, made him burst like shaken champagne. Now he wanted to pay him back in kind. The thought had been in his mind since he first made the decision to take Negan up on his offer. _Meet me in Atlanta_ , he had said. _Come back to bed with me_ , he had meant, and here Rick was, with bells on.

Rick dropped his hands to Negan’s waist and pulled open the towel. He slid his hand in and drew Negan’s flushed and dripping length out.

The man hissed, head falling back slightly. He regarded him, hazel-eyes half-lidded and sultry. “Well, well, look who’s _eager_ tonight,” he murmured appreciatively.

Rick licked his lips and shifted, sinking slowly to his knees before the man whose burning gaze would not leave him. “Let me,” he said huskily, leaning towards Negan’s cock clasped in his hand, blue eyes softly questioning.

Negan gave an amused snort “ _Let_ you? Baby, you think I’m gonna fight you? Do whatever the fuck you want down there.” He threw an arm across the back of the couch and grinned at him, the picture of entitled ease. The truth was pretty far from that - his heart thudded in his chest as he took in the man on his knees, lips inches from his throbbing dick, eyes hungry and hesitant all at once. _Jesus Harold Christ_. It was the last fully coherent thought he had before Rick drew him into his soft, wet mouth. He groaned, hands falling instinctively to grip the other man’s soft curls. He forced his hips to stay still, fighting the urge to thrust into that delicious warmth. Rick dipped his head, running his tongue over every inch of him, and Negan bit his own tongue, trying not to scream.

One of Rick’s hands slid up his chest, splayed flat over his heaving breastbone. _Fuck_. The soft, wet noises Rick’s mouth on him was making reached him, and the haze he was in grew thicker. _Fuuuck_. Strong hands squeezed his thighs, and he forced himself to let go of Rick’s hair, afraid he was going to start pushing his head down on his cock as he sank further into the delirious, shaking heat of the pleasure that burned through him. He didn’t want to fucking do that; he wanted to let Rick take this at his own pace. He dug his fingers into the couch cushions instead, hearing himself make a long, low noise that was dangerously close to a whine.

Rick cupped and squeezed him as he bobbed over his length, and Negan nearly laughed out loud. _Literally has me by the balls_. He was close, so close, and he clawed to get back up to the surface.

“Rick,” he panted. He tugged at his shoulder. “ _Rick_.”

Blue eyes lifted to his, and the knowing mischief he saw glinting there nearly sent him over the edge. It didn’t, but when Rick wrapped his lips tightly around him and sank down him, tongue hot and wet against his length, _that_ did it, and he shook as he came hard, crying out so harshly that it hurt his throat. He sank into the couch, limbs leaden, and fought to get his breathing even again. As his head cleared, he realized Rick was still kneeling in front of him, watching him.

“Hell you doin’? Get up here,” he said weakly, twitching a hand at him.

Rick crawled beside him, sliding his arms around Negan’s neck and sinking against him. He dropped his head to kiss a damp, tattooed shoulder, and Negan gave a low, pleased rumble.

“Honey, don’t take this wrong way,” Negan breathed, “but you suck cock like a goddamn pro.”

Rick reared back and stared. “I don’t know _how_ I’m supposed to take that,” he said, flushing, and Negan barely had the strength to laugh.

“Come on. Come here.” He tugged him down to his shoulder, and Rick allowed it, settling against him. “Where the hell did that come from?” he asked after they lay silently in each other’s arms for a long, lazy time.

“What do you mean? You did it for me,” Rick replied, turning his face slightly into Negan’s shoulder.

 _Shy_ , Negan realized, and he chuckled. “Yeah, okay. You got a strong sense of _justice_ , huh, deputy blue eyes? Turnabout is fair play?”

Rick was quiet for a moment. “Been thinkin’ about it,” he confessed softly. “Since…since after that night.”

“Thinkin’ about it,” Negan echoed, low and growling, the words lush in his mouth. “ _Thinkin_ ’ about it? About my cock down your throat? That’s what’s been on your mind, darlin’? _Hell_ , that’s the sweetest fucking thing I ever heard. There’s a thought to keep me warm at night.”

Rick turned his burning face further into Negan’s shoulder, and the man chuckled, cupping the back of his head.

“God, you’re fuckin’ cute when you get all red like that. You just sit there and blush, baby, because I need about fifteen more fucking minutes, and then I’m gonna put you on your back and eat you alive.” He felt Rick smile into his shoulder, and he bent to kiss the chestnut curls.

Warmth spread through Rick as if it were flowing out from Negan’s lips where they touched him, and he unfurled in the other man's arms, moving over him slowly like a spreading vine. He kissed him, one hand against the coarse scratch of his cheek, tongue hungry for the taste of him.

 _Gotta try and remember how this feels_ , Rick thought, almost grimly. _Night ain’t gonna last forever_. The thought set a slow, sad note of loneliness sounding inside him. He had been starving for this, he realized. Not just sex, although that was part of it; he couldn’t deny that. He had been starving for the easy companionship, the back-and-forth, the careful attention paid to him like he was something valuable and desirable all on its own - something that mattered beyond what he was to his family, to his friends, to the interconnected web of people that relied so heavily on him. He had been starving for a _lover_.

His fingers wanted to grip and cling, but he forced them to relax. He didn’t want Negan to feel his desperation or the intrusion of unwelcome sadness. He had burdened him with enough of that. He just wanted to pour himself over that long, lithe, powerful body. He wanted the heady rush of having the man with the gleaming white, sharp-toothed smirk shaking and incoherent beneath him again. He wanted the breathless, half-bewildered surrender that man’s ruthless love-making compelled. He wanted it all at once, and all that _want_ ached inside of him.

Negan stood, lifting him, and he clung just as he had the last time, in a motel six hundred miles away. _Remember how it feels_. On his back, where his lover had promised to put him, and sliding against the tousled sheets, he didn’t see how he could ever forget.

—

Negan insisted on walking him to his car the next morning, and he insisted on doing it with his arm looped through Rick’s in cartoonish gallantry. “It’s fucking rubbing off on me, Scarlett,” he had laughed at Rick’s half-hearted protests.

“Really, Negan? _Gone with the Wind_? You know we all pretty much hate that shit down here, right? Anyway, you’re no Yankee yourself, _Virginia_. I hear that Tidewater drawl comin’ out sometimes.”

Negan chuckled and dragged him in for a quick kiss, hand tangled in his hair. “That’s a good ear, Rick.” He let it flow out, exaggerated - _that’s a good ea-ah, Rick_.

It was sunny that morning, and soft conversation floated around them from people strolling easily down the street, fading in and out over the roar of passing cars. Rick flushed with shy pleasure at Negan’s insistence on kissing and touching him, feeling like a bit like a teenager out on a date.

“Anyway, give my regards to Bud,” Rick said as they approached his car.

Negan grunted. “He likes you, you know. I’d say it’s some ‘brothers in blue’ shit, but I think you’re just _likable_ , baby.” He dropped a kiss on Rick’s shoulder as he opened the driver’s side. “How’s the car runnin’, anyway?”

“Better than it has in years,” Rick replied, sliding into the driver’s seat. “Thanks to you.” He flinched slightly as he settled into the seat, and he looked up, expecting to see Negan’s thousand-watt smirk trained mockingly on him.

Instead, the other man looked rather sheepish. “Aw, honey, you _are_ sore, aren’t you?” He leaned into the open doorway and kissed the crest of his cheekbone gently. “I’m sorry.” He nosed over into his ear. “Not used to getting fucked that hard, huh, baby?” he chuckled, unable to hold back his irreverence any longer.

“Asshole,” Rick breathed in a laugh, turning his face and catching his lips in a firm, wet kiss.

“See you around?” Negan murmured, hovering close to his face, slipping a few fingers into his buttoned-up collar to brush the flesh hidden by the stiff fabric. The touch felt intimate, erotic, and Rick felt his thighs clench.

 _When?_ Rick wanted to ask, but that felt too honest, too desperate. “Yeah,” he said quietly, and he tilted his head and kissed Negan again, slow, soft, and wistful.

Negan brushed a thumb over his chin as he pulled back, smiling. “Keep your eyes on the road, Georgia,” he said with a mischievous wink. “You wait until you’re safe and sound at home before you start thinking about me, or you are gonna get _distracted_.”

Rick cleared his throat and buckled his seatbelt, feeling his cheeks burn. “I can do that,” he replied huskily, “but what about you? You gotta _network_ , remember? Are you gonna get distracted thinkin’ about _me_?” He felt it as he watched Negan’s eyes darken hungrily at him - the power he held over the man in the leather jacket. He paused, narrowing his blue eyes at Negan where he stood, riveted, above him, and dropped his voice to a throaty near-whisper. “Thinkin’ about me wearin’ your jacket? _Virginia_?”

Negan reached out and cupped his jaw almost reverently, dragging his thumb slowly along the full lower lip. He pressed the pad of his thumb there gently, feeling the wetness of the inner flesh. He watched with satisfaction as the red flush spilled across Rick’s cheeks before he let him go and stepped back, grinning. "You are full of surprises, Rick Grimes. You know what? I really fucking like it."

Rick clicked his door shut, feeling a faint tremor in his legs. “You be nice,” he said, squeezing his thighs together involuntarily. _Shit_. _I am gonna be distracted_ , he thought ruefully. “Don’t you call that man Lurch. He don’t know you’re makin’ fun of him, and that’s just mean.”

Negan laughed. “Yes, mama. I’ll be good.” He rubbed his mouth slowly as he watched the old Ford drive away from him for the second time.


	3. (Don't) Let Me In

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry for the obscenely long wait between chapters. I am but a poor working stiff trying to eke out a little time for hobbies. ^^

After Rick returned from Atlanta, he became aware that something had been unleashed in him - something that worried at the edges of his prosaic day-to-day life. Some small and nearly forgotten door in the depths of his heart had been worked open, and through it had seeped an awareness of his own body, and its appetites, that felt almost alien to him. He touched himself in the dark stillness of the night in a way that he hadn’t in a long, long time, and when he did, he let his other hand wander to the bruises Negan had sucked onto his thighs - _where no one will see, Georgia_. He pressed his fingers into them, and the sharp ache made him that much harder, that much hotter. He had to muffle his own pained, throaty moans into his pillow as he came, taken aback at his own wantonness.

It had been like that when he and Lori had started dating - he had cracked open and raw under the weight of the love blossoming in him, discovering himself through his desire for her. The comparison between how he felt then and now was so apt that it dismayed him. It was _insane_. It was insane, right? He had let the man seduce him; that was all it was. All it could be. What the hell sort of good could it do to remember that Lori had also made him feel like he was unearthing pieces of himself like caches of precious stones every time he was with her?

Nothing felt different during the day, which was no surprise; he really had no time for anything else. He would get up, shower, dress, wake the kids, see Carl off to school, bring Judith to daycare, go to work, pick Judith up on the way home, make dinner…but at night, everything was different. At night, he belonged only to himself.

At night, Negan called.

The first time was almost a week after he had left the man on a sidewalk in Atlanta. It was nearly midnight, and Negan sounded like one too many glasses of whiskey. He did a bit of filthy-sweet pleading, and Rick found himself stripped and with his hand on his cock as he obediently followed the commands being growled in his ear over the phone.

Rick didn’t know what fucking hit him, but he _loved_ it, and if that wasn’t a neat summary of his relationship with Negan, he didn’t know what was. He was brought to a crescendo by the very particular, very _detailed_ directions the dark-haired man whispered at him through the dark. Afterwards he lay panting, phone clasped to his ear, as Negan chuckled softly.

“Baby, you’re a goddamn mess, aren’t you?” he whispered. “I’d lick it off you.”

Rick moaned faintly, squeezing his eyes shut, unable to even begin to put together a coherent response.

“Good night, officer Grimes.”

Rick let the phone fall through his nerveless fingers and bounce across the soft carpet.

—

“What the fuck is goin’ on with you, man?”

Negan rolled out from under the car he was working on. Simon was standing over him, thumbs jammed into his belt. Negan met his quizzical stare with an annoyed frown, feeling his brows meet in this forehead. “I’m trying to figure out what the fuck is wrong with this fucking car - remember, that shitty job we both got?”

Simon rolled his eyes theatrically. “Not the fucking car, man, you - what the fuck is goin’ on with you? What’s been goin’ on with _you_? Something sure as hell is.”

Negan scoffed up at him. “The fuck are you talking about? Nothing is goin’ on with me.”

That was transparently false. Negan had been a hurricane in the weeks since he had returned from Atlanta. An _easily offended_ hurricane who was far freer with his fists than usual. He was an utter bitch to be around these days, and his coworkers gave him a wide berth. Perversely, that set his teeth on edge - it felt like they _knew_ somehow. Bud fucking knew; he caught the older man looking at him often, his milky blue eyes thoughtful, and he very nearly flushed under it every time.

He was jonesing, plain and simple. He had thought it was bad before, but ever since Atlanta, it was hell on fuck-fuck- _fucking_ earth. The late night phone sex, fucking delicious as that was, wasn’t doing a damn thing to take the edge off. His name on Rick’s lips, whispered at him through a phone from six hundred miles away, unraveled him like a skein of yarn, and he _needed_ the other man’s touch to put him back together.

And there it was - he _needed_ him. It was _insane_ \- it was too much, too fast, and it was completely _insane_. He was lost in him, and he knew he had only ever been this lost in one other person. That thought was rabid as it knocked around his head; it chewed on his mind, and it turned _him_ rabid. He snarled at everyone for the crime of bearing witness to his turmoil, and it was absurd to deny it.

But deny it he did, and that left Simon scratching his jaw and rolling his eyes at him for the second time, grimacing as he did. “Come on, man, you’ve been stompin’ around like fuckin’ De Niro in _Raging Bull_. You got Dave pissin’ his pants every time he sees you.”

“Dave is a steaming pile of shit,” Negan snapped irritably, sitting up and wiping his hands on a rag.

“No argument here, man, but it ain’t just him. You got everybody fuckin’ diving for cover.” When Negan said nothing, he shifted uncertainly on his feet. “Is this a Lucille thing, man?” he began gingerly, one foot sliding back as if he anticipated a bum-rush. “Because…well, shit. Is it?”

Negan felt a jolt of pure shock, and he gave a harsh bark of laughter as he leaned back to stare at his friend. He didn’t know whether to be relieved or enraged that Simon could see his shit for what it was - _a Lucille thing_. Losing her had been like a dirty knife thrust straight through his heart; that shit had just _festered_. Twenty years, but it never did fucking heal right. Every once in awhile, Negan was made painfully aware of that - something would jostle the edges of that grief, and the entire corrupt and rotting mass of it would announce itself in a sickening throb. _I’m still here,_ it would say, _and in case you haven’t fucking paid attention, I’ve been turning your insides rancid._

And as much as he wanted to keep all that shit to himself, he fucking _couldn’t_ \- he was too raw, too open, too unabashed for _the Lucille thing_ to be a goddamn secret to anyone close to him for long.

Simon knew all about it, so there was no reason to be fucking surprised that he had put two and two together now. The man was rough-edged and endlessly quirky, and he had a mean streak a mile wide - the kind that spoke to a distant past of stealing lunch money and giving swirlies. But he was capable of a loyalty that was fierce to the point of danger. The first day they had met, he had tested Negan with some alpha-dog bullshit, and Negan had laid him out cold with a vicious punch. Simon had laughed wildly into the floor, pounding on the poured concrete with wild mirth as Negan put a warning boot to the back of his neck. _My new best friend,_ Simon had howled delightedly, and his respect for Negan had been unshakeable since that day.

The man was fucking nuts, but he wasn’t a half-bad confidant.

“All right,” Negan muttered. “You’re right.” He sighed, and some of the tension slid out of him.

Simon abandoned his defensive stance and flopped onto the floor, looking like an overgrown kid joining circle time. “No shit I’m right, man. What am I right about, though?”

Negan slid back and leaned against the grill. “You remember that seventies Ford that came through here, weeks back?”

Simon’s eyebrows went up his forehead, and he grinned. “I remember the way you were eye-fucking the guy who drove it, yeah.”

“Well, he let me fuck him with something else,” Negan said drily. “And now I can’t get him the _fuck_ out of my _fucking_ head.”

“Sounds like you should keep fucking him, then. What’s the goddamn problem?”

Negan rolled his head from shoulder to shoulder, feeling the tense muscles give an irritated throb. “He lives in Georgia.”

“That’s a problem? Shit, man, jump on your fucking bike. You ride all over the goddamn place for the hell of it. You can’t be fucking telling me you’re afraid of the road all of a sudden.”

Negan glared at him. “Watch it, asshole.”

Simon lifted his hands up, palms out, and grinned. “Hey, man, I’m just calling you on your bullshit. This ain’t about how far it is to fucking Georgia. We both know you’d ride clear to California if the tail was good enough.” He lapsed into a brief silence, his eyes suddenly softer and more circumspect than the man’s crass nature generally allowed. “This shit is serious, huh?”

Negan expelled a breath and dug his fingers into his forehead. A denial rose to his lips and then crumpled, dying away. “Feels like it,” he said after a silence. “It doesn’t make any goddamn sense. First night I met him, I already…” he trailed off, unable to put words to the tangled feelings that came to him in the form of a memory: standing in the shower at the motel across the street as he had countless times before, thinking about the man lying asleep in the next room, and feeling his own good sense recoil in alarm at the warm flush of yearning that rose in him. He had put his jacket around the blue-eyed stranger’s shoulders so that everyone would know - _this one is mine._ He never did let go easily once he got it in his mind to claim something. He lifted his fingers to his chest and idly traced the looping script at his collarbone.

“I get it, man,” Simon ventured, “but it just seems to me like you got a problem that ain’t really a problem, even though it feels like a problem.” He frowned in response to Negan’s blank stare. “Shit, I confused myself. What I meant to say was: just go fuck that guy. Go take him out to dinner and shit. Ask him what sign he is. Let it happen. Maybe it’ll be something, and maybe it won’t. Come on, man,” he went on, his tone suddenly, uncharacteristically gentle, “did you really think there would _never_ be anyone else?”

Negan rolled his shoulders, his confusion and unease sitting there in the clenched muscles. “You know what? I guess I _did_ think that,” he said finally.

Simon scratched his chest and stared at the floor. “Come on, man,” he muttered, sounding sad and subdued and very unlike his usual self. “Come on.”

Negan stared at him for a moment before jumping up and throwing the rag he was holding at Simon’s chest. “Finish this shit up,” he tossed over his shoulder, and he nearly smiled at the answering stream of disbelieving curses that followed him. “That’s what you fucking get, Oprah,” he yelled as stepped out into the warm sunshine of midday.

—

A boring day on the job was a good thing in Rick’s line of work, but it didn’t make the dull hours much easier to bear. On those long, plodding days, Shane would get especially territorial about the radio.

“I can’t listen to that hillbilly shit, brother, _please_ ,” he would groan if Rick’s hand so much as twitched towards the knob.

“What I don’t understand is how the hell they let you out of kindergarten,” Rick drawled, amused. “You never heard of sharin’? Takin’ turns?”

“Nah, that shit don’t ring a bell,” Shane returned, corner of his mouth twitching as he drummed on the steering wheel.

“Mm-hm. You can buy me some coffee, then,” Rick sighed, stretching his cramped legs as best he could.

“Now _there’s_ a damn good idea,” Shane grunted, pulling a quick and hard u-turn that had the squad car’s tires screeching in protest.

Rick braced himself as best he could as he was tossed against the passenger side door, and he shot his friend a look. “This ain’t the Dukes of Hazzard, Shane, come on. How many times has the sheriff -“

“You a snitch, Rick?” Shane interrupted, grinning. “The sheriff ain’t here.”

Rick shook his head in exasperation, but he was distracted by his phone, which had begun to buzz insistently in his pocket. He pulled it out, and his heart skipped a beat when he saw who was calling.

“You gettin’ that?” Shane asked, weaving around a slowly moving pickup.

“Nah,” Rick said, mouth suddenly dry, “it ain’t the kids.”

They pulled into a strip mall, and Rick found himself staring at his knees as Shane released his seatbelt and slid out of his seat. “Be right back,” Shane grunted, and Rick nodded absently.

He watched his friend lope off towards the coffee shop, and as soon as he was far enough away, Rick pulled the phone from his pocket and clicked the new voicemail.

A long, low wolf whistle floated out at him. “You got some beautiful eyes, darlin’. I keep thinkin’ about ‘em. That and your cock. It’s a toss up, what I think about more.” He tsked, and Rick could hear the grin in his voice. “You know what? That’s a goddamn lie. You _know_ it’s your cock.”

Rick stared at the phone, cheeks burning. He hesitated for a moment, glancing over at the distant double glass doors that Shane had disappeared through. He hit the redial and waited.

Negan answered after the second ring, and his deep, velvety voice caressed Rick’s ear. “Well, well, well, if it isn’t Rick with the beautiful…eyes.” Negan gave a low, sultry chuckle, and Rick huffed an answering laugh.

“You gonna leave me dirty messages every single time you call? You ever gonna just say ‘hi, how’s your day goin’?”

“Aw, Rick. You _love_ it.”

“Think so, huh?” Rick countered archly, smiling.

“I do. I bet if I was in front of you right now, you’d be all _pink_ the way you get. Am I right or am I fucking right? Am I making you blush, Georgia?”

“No,” he lied brazenly, glancing up at his red face in the rearview mirror. This exchange had become a ritual faithfully enacted each time they spoke over the phone, and Rick liked it - liked having something that already felt well-worn and familiar between them.

A low chuckle poured from the phone at his ear. “Li-ar,” Negan said in a soft, singsong tone. He paused. “How’s your day goin’, baby?” he asked softly.

Rick shifted in his seat, suddenly shy. “Uh. It’s fine. Today’s been quiet.”

“No bullets flying?” he asked, and then he caught himself and swore. “Ah, shit. Honey, I wasn’t thinkin’ -“

“No, no, it’s…you’re right. It’s not…usually dangerous.”

There was a brief silence on the other end of the line. “You tied up this weekend, Rick?”

“Me?” he answered in surprise. “No, just the usual. Me an’ the kids.”

Negan hummed thoughtfully. “Will they spare their daddy for awhile if I promise to bring him back in one piece?”

“You gonna be around here? Something else goin’ on for work?” he asked, surprised and already conscious of his heart beginning to speed up in his chest.

There was a pause. “No,” Negan said finally. “Not business. Just pleasure, Georgia.”

Rick froze, hand tightening on his knee. “You…you sure? It’s so far,” he faltered.

Negan snorted gently. “Make it worth my while then, honey,” he rumbled, and the soft challenge in his voice made Rick’s thighs clench involuntarily.

“Okay,” he replied a trifle hoarsely, hoping he didn’t sound as pathetically eager as he felt. Shane emerged from the double doors at the entrance to the coffee shop. “I have to go. My break’s over. Call me later?” Rick cringed, horrified at how needy he sounded in his own ears.

“Try and stop me, officer.”

Shane did a double-take as he climbed back into the squad car, handing him his coffee. “What the hell, Rick? You’re red as a baboon’s ass.”

“Just hot in here,” Rick said mildly.

Shane shot him a skeptical look. “Uh-huh. Who you talkin’ to?”

“No one,” Rick replied, shoving his phone back into his pocket.

Shane stared at him for a moment, and then he cracked a grin. “You’re a shitty liar, boy. Okay, fine. Keep secrets from your best friend, who brings your ass donuts out of the goodness of his own heart.” He tossed a white bag into Rick’s lap.

Rick picked it up, smiling at him, and the sudden rush of affection he felt for his lifelong friend loosened his tongue. “I, uh…I’m kinda…seein’ someone. Maybe.”

The good humor was washed from Shane’s face in an instant, and Rick’s heart sank.

“Some PTA milf finally get her claws in?” Shane said finally, buckling his seatbelt, his mouth a thin slash in his face.

Dismay and embarrassment thickened Rick’s tongue. “Nah, it’s…nothin’. I mean, I don’t know if it’s…it’s new. I don’t know. I guess it’s nothin.”

Shane frowned at him. “You all tongue-tied over it, Rick? Shit. Who is it, then?”

“No one,” Rick repeated, shaking his head. “Forget I mentioned it.”

“Is it Maggie? I knew that girl was after you. You finally give it to her? I guess that scrawny boyfriend she brought home from college ain’t enough for her, huh? Farmer’s daughter, boy, I’ll bet she-“

“Shut your _mouth_ , Shane,” Rick snapped, his eyes spitting fire. “Don’t you dare talk about Maggie like that. Jesus Christ, the hell’s wrong with you? I said forget it, so go on and fucking _forget_ it.”

“All right, don’t get your panties in a twist over a little locker room shit, Rick. Sorry if I oh- _ffended_ you,” Shane shot back nastily.

Rick grit his teeth and said nothing. It was stupid of him to think that he could confide in Shane about this. He was _never_ going to be able to confide in Shane about this. It had been nearly two years since Lori’s death and the unhappy drama that had played out between them in its aftermath. Rick had allowed himself to think that it had all been laid to rest, fading to a footnote in their decades of friendship.

Looking at the hard set of his friend’s expression now, Rick understood how foolish that had been.

—

The weeks after the funeral felt like an unending dream. Everything came to Rick in disjointed fragments - he saw lips moving and heard no sound, hands fluttering and felt no touch. There were so, so many faces, and they all just melted into each other until everyone he looked at was as featureless as a lump of wax. He was surrounded at all times by a soft, sad symphony of voices - _I’m sorry, so sorry, so very sorry for your loss._ He felt cold and still at the center of it all, like he was carved out of ice.

Shane had just been _gone_ for a good week after the funeral, but when he finally turned up again, looking hollow-eyed and more frail than Rick had ever seen him, he tried to be helpful. He helped Rick sort through the avalanche of sympathy cards, threw out rotting flowers, and even shoved a vacuum around once or twice. He slept on the couch. The first night he did, Rick had lain awake far into the night, feeling tense and watchful, anticipating an encore performance of the night of the funeral. _Not with my kids in the house,_ he had thought grimly to himself, but Shane never appeared. Eventually, his eyes slid shut.

It was like that for awhile. Neither of them brought up what had happened after the funeral. Shane continued to sleep on the couch, and Rick watched him. Watched him play video games with Carl and bounce Judith in his arms. Watched him try to keep on top of the damned flowers that kept appearing like vermin, filling the house with the sickly-sweet scent of their decay. Watched him wash a few dishes, bring a few groceries home, do a few loads of laundry. Weeks passed like that, until one night when Rick was making steady progress on a sink full of dishes after the kids were in bed. He was aware of a presence behind him a split second before lips brushed the back of his neck.

The dish that slipped from his suddenly slack fingers nearly cracked as it clattered back into the sink, and Rick whipped around, heart in his throat. He faced a startled-looking Shane, who had stepped back and put his hands up in the gesture so familiar to both of them. “Jesus,” Rick breathed shakily, “why’d you sneak up like that?”

“Sorry, man, I thought you heard me comin’,” Shane said, looking abashed. They stared at each other for a moment. Shane began to lean forward, tilt his head, and Rick shoved back against the sink on instinct. A brick-red flush climbed up Shane’s neck. “Look, man,” he began, “look, I…uh, you know. Come on, Rick. You know me. You know I didn’t mean to do you like that after...after..." Shane's voice faded to nothing, unable to say it: _after her funeral_. "I was out of my head, man.”

“Yeah,” Rick said slowly, “I know.” The sink was still running behind them, and Rick reached back to twist it off, eyes never leaving Shane.

Relief at Rick’s words softened Shane’s expression. “Good. That’s good, Rick.” The solid mass of him was against Rick suddenly, hips crowding him against the cold lip of the sink, mouth sealed tight over his.

Rick twisted away, managing to get his palms between them and pressed flat beneath Shane’s collarbone, creating enough space to free himself from the determined kiss. “Stop it,” he said huskily. “Don’t just…what are you doin’, Shane?”

“Rick, come on,” Shane pleaded. He looked almost dazed in his suffering, his eyes wide and wet. “Come on. It’s you an’ me, ain’t it? It’s always been you an’ me, Rick. Come _on_.”

Rick wasn’t sure whether it was his expression or his words that caused him to falter, but he relaxed his arms and allowed Shane to sweep in again, meeting his kiss. It was hard and hungry, but there was a longing there that touched off an answering ache in Rick’s chest. _I could like it like this,_ he found himself thinking. _It could be more slow, more calm, more careful, and I could like it._ Shane had been helping, trying. He had looked after the kids. He was his best, his dearest friend, and he had been since as early as he could remember. His bitter, raging, drunken confession of his feelings for Lori all those years ago had shaken their bond, but it had ultimately endured the storm. Maybe this was the way forward for all of them. Maybe it was what she would have wanted.

A hand groped him roughly between his thighs, and Rick pushed him away again, shaking his head as apprehension gripped him with its icy fingers. “Shane -“

“Come on,” Shane breathed, eyes half-closed, hands grasping, “come on, come on, come _on_.”

Rick straightened his arm, holding Shane back, while his other knocked the insistent, hungry hands away. “Dammit, Shane,” he hissed. “Stop it. _Stop_ it.”

Shane groaned, his lips twisting in displeasure, but he finally withdrew his hands. “What’s the fuckin’ problem, Rick? Kids’re asleep, we could just -“

“Shane,” Rick said carefully, “listen, all right? Just listen for a minute. If you really think we could do this, then okay. But I won’t do it halfway. You’re either here with me, or you’re not.“

Shane frowned at him, brows knitting. “What do you mean?”

“I mean that if you want…” Rick faltered a little, feeling his face heat up. He drew a breath and tried again. “You wanna be with me, go through this together, then it has to be as a part of the family. No side flings, no comin’ and goin’ as you please - I can’t have that. Carl and Judith can’t have that. Understand?”

A wary unease had sprung up in the other man’s eyes, and Rick took it in sadly but with no real surprise. Shane had been right - he _knew_ him. His best friend in the world, whom he loved, was selfish. Too selfish to give up anything of himself in exchange for what he took from people, and Rick had always thought that might change one day, with the right person. _Guess that ain’t me,_ he thought, and everything seemed to get a little dimmer around him.

“I ain’t ready for that, Rick,” Shane said finally. “Settlin’ down…hell. I just ain’t ready.“

Rick nodded slowly at him. “I know. I know that, Shane.”

The hand went back to his hip, sliding over the soft swell of flesh. “Come on, Rick. We could just fool around a little, take it slow -“

Rick seized his wrist, preventing the hand from wandering further. “No,” he said firmly, “I already told you, Shane. I ain’t doin’ it halfway. You change your mind about what I said, then you tell me, but otherwise we’re not doin’ this.”

An ugly look crossed Shane’s features, and for a moment, the rage he saw gathering like storm clouds in his friend’s eyes set off every alarm bell in Rick’s brain. _He wouldn’t,_ he thought, but he braced himself for it anyway. _He wouldn’t._

He didn’t.

Shane stepped back, rubbing the back of his head. “All right,” he muttered. “All right, Rick. Coulda been somethin’, but have it your way.”

By the time Rick finished the dishes, Shane had gathered his things and left. That had been the end of him sleeping on Rick’s couch, and they never spoke of it again.

—

When Rick asked Maggie to take Carl and Judith to the Greene farm for the weekend, she had fixed him with a sly little smile.

“Another weekend, Rick?” she had asked with sparkling eyes. “There somethin’ you wanna tell me, or have you just finally taken up fly fishin’? Daddy’ll be over the moon if you did. He keeps tryin’ to take Glenn these days, and he never even _heard_ of fly fishin’. Guess they don’t do much of that in Macon.”

Rick laughed, feeling his flush rise in his cheeks. “No, it ain’t fly fishin’, although I _did_ promise your daddy I’d let him drag me out one day.”

“And he ain’t gonna forget it,” Maggie grinned. She tilted her head at him expectantly.

“I don’t know, Maggie,” Rick said, looking down at the floor. “There ain’t nothin’ to tell yet. Not really.”

Her eyes softened at him. “Well. Y’all know where to find me if you wanna talk about it.” She hesitated for a moment, her smile growing a little sad. “I hope there is something to tell, Rick - I’m happy you’re goin’ out again. Really. You deserve…” she trailed off, eyes suddenly wet. She stepped up to him wordlessly and wrapped her arms around his neck, and he was surrounded by the soft, clean scent of her. “God, I hope you’re havin’ some fun,” she laughed at his ear, the barest tremble in it.

Rick squeezed her tightly around the waist for a moment, pressing his cheek to her auburn hair. “Don’t worry about me, Maggie. Please.”

She gave his shoulder an impatient little slap. “Aw, shut up, Rick. I’ll worry whether you like it or not.” She pulled back from the embrace with the brightness of her smile restored. “Don’t _you_ worry - I’ll take care of Carl and Judith. You go on and have yourself a weekend.”

—

Rick drove, listening to _that hillbilly shit_ , and he hardly saw the scenery that flashed by him. He was deep in thought, wondering, as he often had after that day his car broke down on a highway in Virginia, what the _hell_ he was doing. _Having an affair,_ his own mind replied, but that sounded so silly, like something from a day-time soap. He should just be a goddamned adult and _ask_ what they were doing, but the simple truth was: he was afraid. He was afraid that whatever it was would not withstand the probing, and he just didn't want to risk that. Whatever it was, he liked it. Whatever it was, he wanted more of it.

When he met Negan in a roadside motel about a county over from home, he was the one that pounced. He swallowed the dark-haired man’s lips by way of greeting, crowding him into the wall and tearing at his clothes. Negan was talking to him - that man was _always_ talking - but it barely filtered through the haze of the ravenous lust that had possessed him. _Miss me? Did you miss me, baby?_ Rick pulled the riding gloves he was still wearing off and sucked his fingers into his mouth. _Been thinking about me?_ He pressed him, naked and already leaking, onto the bed. _Been dreaming about riding my cock again?_ Rick rolled his hips and cried out as Negan’s searching fingers moved urgently in him. _Tell me, Georgia._

“Yes,” Rick moaned in the long, soft, whispering breath as he sank onto his hard length.

Negan’s hand snaked up and gripped his jaw. Rick forced himself to focus on him, pushing through his haze with an effort. Negan’s eyes looked black, all swallowed by pupil, and they were molten with desire. “What a fucking coincidence,” he growled beneath him, voice strained. “I’ve been dreaming of the exact same fucking thing.”

Rick folded over him, seeking his lips and finding them in a slippery, wet kiss.

Negan settled back and crossed his arms behind his head, shooting a wicked-looking smirk up at him. “All right, honey. You wanted to be in the saddle. Go on.”

Rick rolled his hips experimentally and sighed as pleasure spread through him in a slow, sweet wave. He reached down and ran his palms over the hard planes of Negan’s stomach and chest, hungry for the feel of his skin. Negan arched beneath his touch, passing his tongue over his lips. He rose suddenly to sitting, catching Rick around the waist and thrusting languidly up into him. Rick gasped, head falling back, gripping him by the arms. “Thought I was in the saddle,” he whispered, shuddering in delight as Negan moved in him again.

The other man laughed, squeezing his hip. “I have been _told_ ,” he began, speaking the words into the scrape of Rick’s stubbled jaw, “that I have problems giving up control.” He pulled back a little, dropping a roguish wink.

“No kiddin’,” Rick answered breathlessly, leaning his head in to steal another kiss. He let Negan set the pace, rising and falling in time with the guiding hands on his hips. It was slower and sweeter than Rick expected, given that they had just come together like gasoline and matches, but Rick liked it that way, liked how calm and unhurried and _easy_ he felt in the other man’s arms. Negan kissed his face, his neck, his shoulders, and Rick breathed his name like a soft and eager chant as they spiraled up together.

Negan let out a sobbing, soundless breath unlike anything Rick had heard from him before as he came, spilling warm and wet inside him. Rick clung to him as he did, cupping the back of his head and bringing him down to his neck. He was so close, and his eyes flew open in shock as Negan suddenly lifted him off, laying him on his back.

“What -“ he began, bewildered, but then Negan swallowed him down to his balls, and he choked back a cry and was gone, every muscle pulling taut as his release gripped him. He came back to himself with Negan curled around him. He gave a contented hum, reaching up to grip Negan’s arm where it lay slung over his chest, and let his eyes drift shut. He supposed he dozed for a bit, but Negan’s voice brought him back to the waking world.

“You made me come first,” the dark-haired man said almost accusingly.

Rick laughed weakly. “Is that bad?”

Negan scratched his nails lightly over Rick’s chest, making him shiver. “Oh, very fucking bad, Rick. I have a fucking reputation to maintain.”

“That so? I guess I gotta get down on my knees and beg for forgiveness, then,” Rick murmured slyly, dragging his fingers through the curling hair at the juncture of Negan’s thighs.

The other man swore, shuddering. “That's a good place to fucking start,” he growled softly before nipping the skin of his neck.

Rick felt a thrill dance through him at the touch of teeth, and he nestled closer. “Well, give me a few minutes, and I’ll see what I can do.” His phone buzzed to life suddenly from somewhere amid his discarded clothing, chiming steadily, and he groaned involuntarily.

Negan chuckled, tightening his arms around him. “Let it fucking ring, baby.”

“I can’t,” Rick sighed, wriggling reluctantly out of his grasp, “it’s probably Maggie.” He walked on unsteady legs to retrieve the phone, but the moment he had it in his hand, it fell silent. He frowned at the unfamiliar number on the screen. “Nah. Wrong number, I guess.”

Negan reached for him as soon as he slipped back into bed. “Who’s _Maggie_?” he murmured, letting the name roll sensuously in this mouth as he tugged Rick against his chest. “Should I be jealous?”

Despite the teasing tone, Rick felt himself frown in dismay. Shane’s ugly words came back to him. “Maggie’s family,” he said quietly. “She and my wife…their families go way back. Distant kin - third cousins or somethin’. Lori was always baby-sittin’ for Maggie and her little sister, and the four of us…we spent a lot of time together. Goin’ out to the park, to the county fairs…you know.” Rick swallowed, throat suddenly tight. Those days had been some of the happiest of his life - he and Lori, when their romance was just starting to blossom. When they were still just teenagers playing house under Hershel Greene’s benevolent yet watchful eye. Maggie had been an energetic bundle of skinny limbs, braided hair, and scraped knees back then. She had grown so _quickly_ ; they all had, and the innocent joy of those days had not, could not survive into adulthood. By now, the memories were so distant they seemed like they belonged to another lifetime entirely.

Negan gripped a handful of chestnut curls and tugged, gently. “Come back, Rick.”

Rick exhaled a faint huff of laughter and turned his head to kiss the hard chest beneath him. “I’m here.”

“Mm-hm. Lost you for a minute.”

Rick lifted his head. “I’m protective of her,” he said slowly, “which is funny, because the way I see it, she’s always lookin’ out for _me_. Always helpin’, especially with the kids. With ‘em now.”

“Cousin Maggie, huh? Hell. That’s nice. I don’t have any family left above ground myself.”

“No?” Rick asked softly, brow creasing. “Sorry.”

Negan chuckled and reached down to squeeze a generous handful of ass. “Don’t feel sorry for me, baby, it’s a fuckin’ waste. I don’t deserve it. I’ve raised too much hell.”

“Don’t say that,” Rick protested, running his hand over Negan’s chest and earning a pleased hum. “We all deserve to have people.”

Negan laughed again, giving his ass another possessive squeeze. “Well, right now I have _you_ , lover boy,” he said breezily, and Rick felt his face heat up immediately.

“Yeah,” he sighed, smiling through his embarrassed pleasure, “but let me catch my breath before you have me again.”

“Whatever you need, baby doll.”

Rick opened his mouth to protest that one - _baby doll_ \- but Negan’s other hand rose and stroked slowly through his hair and down to the back of his neck where it lay warmly, and he shivered under the soft comfort of the touch. They lay peacefully together for some time, and Rick felt his eyes grow heavy again. He lifted a hand to stifle a yawn, and Negan shifted beneath him.

“Tired, honey?” he murmured gently.

Rick mumbled something in the affirmative, and Negan chuckled. He caught the barest edge of a teasing menace in it before he was unceremoniously flipped and tumbled onto his back, knees pushed wide.

“Too fuckin’ bad,” Negan rumbled above him, the caress in his voice a contrast to the rough handling of a moment ago, “because you’re not getting any fucking sleep tonight. You know, I’ve been going pretty fucking easy on you, Georgia, but hell - I think you can take it.”

“I can take it,” Rick whispered, sleep suddenly the farthest thing from his mind. “Do whatever you want.”

Negan chuckled darkly. “What _ever_ I want?”

It felt like only moments later that Negan was lowering himself on Rick’s flushed and straining cock, practically purring as he took it. Rick almost wailed, oh, _Jesus_ , that was good, and he reached blindly out to grip the other man’s thighs. He found his wrists caught and pinned to the bed.

“No you don’t, baby,” Negan warned, grinning, “it’s my turn in the saddle now.”

Rick whined and arched beneath him, nearly mindless with pleasure. He tried to wriggle his arms free - he just wanted to _touch_ him…

“Christ, Rick, do I have to tie you to the fucking bed?” Negan groaned immediately, a shudder ripping through him at the thought. “Shit. I should have fucking tied you to the bed.” The bed in question quaked beneath them. “You want that, baby? Wanna be all doe-eyed and helpless for me while I fuck you into next Tuesday?” He laughed as Rick’s cock twitched inside him, giving him his answer. He bent over Rick and ran his sharp teeth over a pink nipple. “Had a feeling you had a wild side, Georgia,” he whispered into his flushed and sweating chest.

Rick’s eyes fluttered shut as he endured the sweet assault. “You’re…all…wild side,” he managed between pants.

Negan released one of his wrists and slid a hand over his throat, feeling the bounding pulse there. “You’re goddamned right I am,” he replied, and the playful danger in his voice felt like a splash of gasoline to Rick’s already burning body.

“Negan, please, I can’t,” he cried, unsure exactly of what he was pleading for - just that he was wound so tight and on fire, and he needed the dark-haired, wild-eyed man to soothe him down again.

“I know,” he replied almost gently, and then he proceeded to ride him at a _merciless_ pace, until Rick was shrieking and spilling into him like a volcano. He had been babbling something as he floated down from his orgasm, and he didn’t know what it was until Negan kissed the soaked curls plastered to his temple.

“I missed you, too, darlin’,” he murmured, and Rick turned his damp face into the other man’s shoulder, abashed and pleased all at once.

—

 _These ain’t my sheets_ was the first confused thought that floated across Rick’s mind as he slowly awakened. It came back to him gently, like the tide coming in - a motel. Negan. Rick reached sleepily out for him and was confused to encounter nothing but rumpled bedding. He forced his eyes open and saw that he was alone. He scrubbed a hand across his face, feeling unease slide coldly through him. _He wouldn’t,_ he thought anxiously. _Would he?_

Then the door clicked softly open, and Negan stepped inside, carrying two tall white cups of what Rick eagerly hoped was coffee. He sat up quickly and tried to smooth his wild curls as he flushed a little with the pleasure and relief of seeing him.

“Hey, darlin’,” Negan said warmly, flashing his dazzling smile at him. He crossed to Rick’s side, setting the cups on the beside table before he bent and kissed the corner of his mouth. He then crawled over a laughing, protesting Rick to settle on the other side of the bed, boots and all. “Brought you coffee, lover boy,” he purred as he leaned back against the headboard and grinned cheekily, crossing his long legs at the ankles.

Negan looked crisp and sharp, not a hair out of place. Rick, in contrast, felt mussed and pulled and twisted and rumpled, like he had been - well, like he had been fucked all night by an enthusiastic lover strong enough to bend him like taffy. The thought heated his cheeks up even more.

“Thanks,” Rick said softly, trying to cover his sudden bashfulness. “And good mornin’. How long have you been up?”

“Few hours. What? I’m an early riser,” Negan laughed in response to Rick’s incredulous look. “Actually, I slept later than usual, but I was with this fucking nympho last night. Yeah, he kept me _up_.” Negan dropped a sultry wink to punctuate the innuendo.

Rick gave a wry chuckle. “Nympho, huh?”

Negan pushed his tousled curls back from his forehead. “Yeah, you seen ‘im? He’s hard to miss. Got eyes so blue they don’t look real.”

Rick dropped his eyes at that, feeling his flush continue to spread under the other man’s flirtatiously admiring gaze.

Negan huffed a soft laugh, reaching out trace Rick’s jaw. “Baby, look up here. Look at me.” He urged him back up with gentle pressure under his chin, and Rick met his eyes again, smiling. “You gonna let me buy you breakfast, Georgia? We both need to fucking refuel after last night. ”

He reached up and put his hand over Negan’s where it rested against his jaw. “Can’t say no to that,” he replied with a small, amused smile, and he turned his face into Negan’s palm to press a kiss there.

The other man’s eyes darkened. “You better get your ass up out of this bed, honey. You start putting those lips on me, who knows what’s gonna fucking happen.”

Rick would have liked to explore what was _gonna fucking happen_ , as much as his outraged body protested the thought, but he was undeniably hungry. He drank the hot, rich coffee as quickly as he could before he showered and dressed. As they strolled down the street, Negan threw a possessive arm around his shoulders, and he liked it. Soon he was facing a plate of eggs and toast as Negan ran his ankle up his calf beneath the table. He liked that, too.

“How many kids you got, anyway? Even half-dozen?”

Rick nearly choked on a bite of toast while Negan snickered at him. “Don’t even joke,” he said, horrified. “I got two. Carl’s fourteen, and Judith will be two in about a month.” A sudden frown marred Rick’s expression, and he reached for his coffee, eyes downcast.

“What’s wrong?” Negan asked, puzzled.

Rick took a slow sip of black coffee before answering. “It’s, uh…my wife…she passed while she was havin’ Judith. It was this…freak thing. The doctors said some of the - the water that was around the baby got into her blood, and that’s what killed her. It’s rare, they said, very, very rare. They kept sayin’ that. ‘It’s a very, very rare complication.’” Rick exhaled slowly through his nose, coffee cup still clasped in his hands. “I don’t know why they thought it was so important that I understand that.”

“Your baby girl’s birthday,” Negan said slowly, “I get it. It’s the same fucking day. Shit, Rick. I’m sorry. I’m really fucking sorry.”

Rick put his cup down slowly, eyes still on the table. He dug in his pocket for a minute and pulled out his wallet. He always kept the worn photograph inside - ever since it was taken. He pushed it across the table wordlessly, and Negan picked it up. It was Lori, when she was seventeen and they had just started dating, sitting on the hood of the old Ford and grinning as the wind whipped her honey-colored hair into her face. She looked vibrant. She looked _alive_.

Negan let out a low whistle, glancing up at Rick, his eyes soft. “Your girl looks like an angel in a painting, Rick,” he said quietly.

Rick hummed softly in agreement as he took the photo back.

“A baby and a teenager, huh?” Negan said after a moment. “Shit, darlin’, no _wonder_ you worry the way you do. That’s got to be a bitch to handle on your own. I’ll bet they run you ragged.”

The sadness that had overtaken Rick’s face eased a little. “They do,” he smiled. “But they’re both good kids. And my friends help when they can. A few days ago, Shane picked ‘em up for dinner so that I could -“ he broke off in mid-sentence, arrested by Negan’s incredulous look. He put his fork down, suddenly feeling queasy, remembering that Negan knew exactly one thing about Shane Walsh.

“Shane,” Negan echoed slowly, “the guy that shoved his dick in you -“

“Negan,” Rick hissed, looking around wildly to see if anyone was within earshot.

He went on, heedless of the admonishment, “- on the day you buried your wife without so much as a ‘mother, may I?’ _That_ Shane?”

Rick suddenly couldn’t look at him, so he looked everywhere else. He flinched a little when Negan’s fingers brushed his gently and looked up at him, startled.

“Honey, don’t do that,” he said softly, and there was regret in the hazel eyes. “I didn’t mean to say it like that - embarrass you. I just…I’m surprised you’re still friendly with him, considering what he did to you.”

“It’s not how you think,” Rick whispered, feeling his brow knit in distress. “It’s not. Everything was a goddamn mess that day. He didn’t mean the way things happened.”

Negan’s eyes saddened at that, a silent repudiation to the excuses that cut straight through Rick.

And he _knew_ they were just excuses; he could hear how it all sounded spoken plainly. He lifted his hands to his face and dropped them uncertainly.

Negan stood and walked around the table, sliding into the booth beside Rick, who instinctively turned his face away. He laid a warm hand on his shoulder. “Never mind, darlin’. Forget I fucking mentioned it.” Negan squeezed the shoulder beneath his hand gently. Rick swallowed, throat suddenly tight, and nodded jerkily. Negan’s arm went around his shoulders, and Rick leaned willingly into his comforting warmth.

“It’s something that happened once. It was a mistake, and that’s how I remember it. Just a…sad mistake. I want it to be behind me.” It was a little easier to speak without having to look straight into Negan’s piercing, variegated eyes. “Let me just leave it behind me.” He felt lips in his hair.

“I’m sorry,” Negan murmured into chestnut curls, and they left it at that.

They spent a lazy day together in their room, and Rick was grateful that Negan let their conversation be soft and easy after the tense exchange at the diner. Rick told him about growing up in his small town, and Negan told him a few of his best road stories, like the time a hard-eyed woman with a shaved head pulled a gun - _seemed like she pulled it out of her ass, Rick, had no idea she was fucking carrying_ \- on him at a nearly abandoned biker bar and demanded he let her add to his collection of tattoos. Rick traced the delicately inked rifle that spanned his inner thigh, its barrel pointing down and reaching nearly to his knee.

“I was fucking sweating, Rick - this crazy chick with a needle a sneeze away from my balls. But you know what? I fucking _like_ that one,” he laughed.

Rick bent and kissed it. “I like it, too,” he said huskily, smiling, and Negan’s eyes darkened at him as he pulled him up into his arms. They came together like that throughout the day and night - waves calmly lapping against each other in an untroubled sea, like they had all the time in the world for it. They didn’t, but Rick let Negan erase that thought, and every other, from his mind with his smirking mouth and clever hands.

Rick woke up on Sunday morning with a wistful longing already filling his chest and sitting heavily on his heart. _Time’s up,_ he thought sadly. He hid his gathering dejection as best he could, but as Negan walked him to his car with their fingers tangled together, he could feel something desperate fluttering around inside his chest. Negan squeezed his hand, and he realized with a start that the other man had been waiting for him to reply to a question.

“Fucking tuning me out already, baby?” he laughed, his tongue coming to rest at the corner of his mouth as his eyes sparkled at Rick. “Damn.”

“I’m sorry, honey,” Rick murmured contritely, and then he immediately flushed pink - he had never called the man anything other than his name, despite the avalanche of _honey-baby-darlin’_ from Negan. “I was just lost in my own head,” he said hastily, to cover his embarrassed confusion.

Negan laughed beside him, catching on to the little slip, and he spun Rick towards him and stole a wet kiss. “Lost in your pretty head, _honey_? About what?”

They had reached his car, and he just couldn’t hold the question back this time, pride be damned. “About when I’ll be seein’ you again. When will that be, Negan?”

Negan blinked at him, and the smirk faded from his lips. “When do you want to see me again?”

Rick dropped his eyes to the ground. “I don’t want you to go at all,” he admitted, and he braced himself for this to be it - the moment where Negan tells him that he was just having fun, but if Rick’s going to just go and get _attached_ , well…

Large hands gripped Rick’s waist and pulled him flush against the leather and hardware of the other man’s jacket. “Then I’ll see you next weekend,” Negan said in his ear, warm breath fanning over and down his neck. “For the record, I don’t want to fucking go, either. You think I wouldn’t drag you back to that motel if I could?” He nipped at the shell of Rick’s ear. “It’s not enough, hearing your voice, listening to you come for me over the damn phone…that’s like a drop of water in the fucking desert, just makes you _thirstier_.” Negan had him crowded back against the car, and Rick’s eyes slid shut as the other man’s lips trailed down to his throat. “You should know better, honey,” Negan said between wet kisses punctuated with the occasional stinging bite, “than to let a man like me in. Let me keep coming back to you. You’re too sweet, baby, I could eat you _alive_.”

“Don’t say that,” Rick said as he slid his hands under Negan’s jacket, his voice a breathy rumble. “You’ve been good to me.”

Negan made a needy noise against Rick’s throat and sucked a painful bruise into the tender skin there that made the blue-eyed man gasp and grind his hips urgently against him. “Christ, what the fuck did you do to me? Cast a fucking spell on me? I _want_ you, Rick, I want you, I-“

Rick gripped his jaw roughly and turned his face up into his. The kiss was far too wet, too intimate, too desperate for a public parking lot, but Rick was too far gone to be embarrassed. That was everything he wanted to hear - that it wasn’t enough, that Negan wanted _more_.

 _More what?_ a nagging voice piped up in the back of his mind. _More sex? Well, sure. That doesn’t mean he wants anything else, Rick - who the hell would want anything to do with the rest of it? The rest of_ you _?_

The voice was too faint, and Negan’s searing kiss obliterated it.

And that’s how it started. It was a funny way to go steady, Rick thought, meeting in motels on the weekends. And he didn’t dare ask Negan if that’s what they were doing, but hell - that’s what it felt like. They began to learn each other slowly, carefully. There were things they stayed away from - Rick knew the story of every last tattoo on Negan’s body except for one, _Lucille_ looped in flowing script across his collarbone, and Negan learned to stop asking about the scar from a bullet on Rick’s shoulder, since every time he did Rick grew pale, still, and silent. But it was all _growth_ \- they grew closer, more entangled, like neighboring greenery, and Rick allowed himself to feel contentment in that despite the nagging, scornful voice - _he’s not a part of your life, Rick, not really_ \- that would not be fully silent.


	4. How Easy You Are to Need

Monday evening found Negan in the familiar position of drinking a beer in Bud’s office. He had been generous about restocking the man’s supply recently, both because he truly had drunk a goddamn _ton_ of Bud’s beer and also because he found himself in a consistently good fucking mood. The relief around the garage when he had pulled out of his furious tailspin had been palpable. Simon was the only one that knew the whole story, and he truly did know the whole story by the time Negan was done telling it in vivid detail.

It was the story of shy, secretive Deputy Grimes with the honey drawl and the eyes as soft and sweet and fucking _blue_ as cotton candy from a summer carnival, who flushed pink under Negan’s wandering hands like he was being touched for the very first time, every time. Like a _vir-ir-ir-irgin_ , just like Madonna fucking sang it, and the way the man could be so strong and so soft at the same time tore Negan to fucking pieces.

Sometimes Negan felt like Simon was enjoying the story a little too much, and when he would say so with a scowl, Simon was prone to answering him with an obscene waggle of his eyebrows. He could fucking allow that - Simon had been the one to give him the sharp kick in the ass he needed to send him down the interstate and into Rick’s arms. But it was Rick himself that changed everything with a single sentence - _I don’t want you to go at all_. That was fucking it. He had dropped those big blue eyes from his as he said it, as if he were afraid of what he would see in reply, and Negan wanted him so badly in that moment he could have swallowed him whole. The man might as well have reached out and handcuffed his wrist to his.

And it was so fucking welcome - so fucking easy. What the hell had he ever been afraid of? _Well, you’re still just sneaking around like a couple of teenagers playing grab-ass behind the bleachers,_ an unpleasant voice called out from the back of his mind. _So, yeah, it’s easy. You think it’d still be easy if you really tried to get inside his world?_

“Shut up,” he irritably. He looked up to see a startled-looking Bud hovering in the doorway. Negan lazily lifted up his beer in a salute. “Not you, Bud. Talking to the fucking voices in my head.”

Bud snorted and shook his head. “Boy, you worry me.” He crossed his arms. “Skipped out from work early again Friday,” he added mildly.

“Yeah, I ain’t gonna lie to you - I’ll probably do it again this Friday. The boys covered me, didn’t they?”

“Sure as shit they did; they’re goddamned terrified of you,” Bud said drily.

Negan scratched his jaw. “That what you wanna talk about? Hell, Bud. I know I was more of an asshole than usual for awhile there, but I’ve been playing nice.”

Bud gave him a considering look. “Sure, you’ve been playing nice - and you’ve been leaving early on Fridays. Where’ve you been, kid?” he asked softly. “Couple states south, maybe?”

Negan hated the incriminating full-body startle that provoked in him. “What the fuck, Bud? What’s with the third degree? You havin’ a flashback to bein’ a cop?” Negan snapped.

Bud gave a wry laugh. “That was a million years ago, boy. Nah. I just have a proposition for you. You remember my cousin Jim from down around Atlanta? You met him at the convention?”

Negan blinked at him, puzzled by what felt like a sudden shift in the topic of conversation. “Jim? Sure. Man of few words. Can’t hold his fucking liquor. What about him?”

“He’s been a trucker his whole life. He’s an antisocial sonovabitch, you saw that - so it was the perfect fuckin’ job for ‘im. But he loves his wife and girls. Hates spending all that time away from ‘em, bein’ on the road for days on end.” Bud shot him an amused smile. “You remember me telling you any of this?”

Negan blinked at him, running a hand over the stubble on his jaw. What he _remembered_ from that night was Rick tucked securely under his arm, soft blue eyes sparkling at him as Negan counted down the minutes until he could get the man alone and all to himself. Negan had a feeling Bud knew that, and he gave a faint snort at the older man. “It sounds familiar, Bud, and it’s heart-warming as fuck, but what’s the point?”

“The point is that the boy’s a damn good mechanic - made plenty of extra cash working down at Axel’s when shit was slow with the trucking, so he got the idea to save up to start his own garage. I pitched in myself. Took a big-ass chunk out of my retirement savings, as a matter of fact.” Bud scratched his thick, iron-grey hair. “What can I say?” he said finally. “He’s some of the only family I got. I love that dumb, broody little prick.”

Negan crossed his arms, feeling a prickle of affection for the grizzled older man. Bud was a damn good guy. He had certainly been good to _him_. He had taken him in after Lucille’s death left him shattered and drifting, and he supposed his life might have taken a very different turn if he hadn’t had the steady work at the garage and its gruff old keeper to keep him anchored to _something_. “That’s big of you, Bud,” he muttered. “Hope he appreciates it.”

Bud waved his hand, waving away the praise. “Gotta look out for family, kid. Thing is, he needs help. Setting up the books, getting guys to work for ‘em…hell, any kind of talking that needs to be done, he needs help with it. _You_ saw ‘im - boy’s too shy to put two words together, and on top of that, he offends real easy, and then he’s liable to start swingin’.” Bud tilted his head at him. “You wanna go down there for a while and handle it, kid? I’ll pay you good for it. Manager money.”

Negan stared, and it slowly dawned on him why Bud was so interested in exactly where he had been while playing hookey. “Why not leave the place up here with me and go down yourself?” he asked slowly, trying to feel out his suspicions.

Bud cracked a smile. “Because it sounds like a huge pain in my ass, kid. That’s a shit-load of work. I’m an old man; I don’t need that kind of aggravation. Besides, you’re down there all the damn time, anyway, chasin’ after that deputy. Come on, kid,” Bud groaned in response to Negan’s suddenly mulish expression, “you were hangin’ on that boy all night when we were down there. I’m old, but I’m not senile. Yet,” he added wryly.

“You tryin’ to play cupid, Bud?” Negan snapped, scratching his jaw to hide his sudden embarrassment.

Bud snorted. “Yeah, slap a diaper on me and give me a little pink bow and arrow. Ain’t _that_ a pretty picture. Kid, it’s not a big fuckin’ deal. I’m offering you a job. What are you getting your balls in a twist for?”

Negan crossed his arms, smiling faintly. “My balls are fully untwisted, you ancient fuck. I’ll do it.”

“Good,” he grunted. He tipped his blue cap further back on his head and squinted. “Runnin’ with a cop is good for you, asshole. Keep you out of fuckin’ trouble. _Maybe_.”

“Maybe,” Negan echoed, turning away. His first instinct was to call Rick, but he hesitated, because of what day it was. Judith’s birthday, and the day two years ago that Rick’s old lady had succumbed to a very, very rare complication.

—

Rick took the day off and kept Carl from school. He debated taking Judith with them to the cemetery. She was so little - too little to understand the solemn pilgrimage they would be making together, but in the end he decided he just didn’t want to be separated from either of them that day. She fussed a little at the grave, and Rick allowed himself to believe that it was because she did understand, on some level, that she was as close as she was ever going to get to the woman that had lovingly bore her inside her own body. They left flowers on her grave together and stopped for lunch at Lori’s favorite diner, where they had had countless meals together as a family. Carl ordered his eggs over easy, the way his mother had liked them. He pushed them around his plate with his fork, his expression forlorn and distant.

“Thought scrambled was your favorite,” Rick observed quietly.

Carl gave him a small smile. “Yeah, but I thought I’d try them different.”

Rick reached over and squeezed his son’s hand as tears welled helplessly in his eyes.

“It’s okay, dad,” Carl said in a strained, soft whisper.

Rick nodded, staring at his hands and willing the tears away. He didn’t want to fall apart. Not in the middle of a diner and not in front of his children. He wanted to wait until he was alone before he let his grief have its way with him. He had a feeling that Carl wanted the same thing.

They ate together without speaking, but it was a gentle, intimate silence. They drove home in it, and even Judith seemed quiet and subdued. She was dozing when they pulled into their driveway, and Carl murmured to her as he lifted her from her carrier. Rick watched him carry her inside and upstairs, rocking her gently as she laid her head on his shoulder, and he choked on the love and pride that swelled in his throat.

“You’re so good with her,” he said softly when Carl returned to the living room and sprawled on the couch. “I don’t know how I’d do it without you helpin’ me take care of her, Carl.”

Carl smiled, flushing a little at the praise. He lifted his hand to absently adjust the white patch at his eye. “I was mad at her, you know,” he confessed quietly as the smile faded from his face. “Judith. I hated her when she first came home. I guess I blamed her for what happened.” He looked up at his father, and his eye was wet. “Messed up, huh?”

Rick shook his head. “Everything gets messed up when something like that happens, Carl. You don’t know what to think, what to feel…I had thoughts I didn’t know what to do with, too.” Rick swallowed. “Felt like I was losin’ my mind sometimes. I guess that’s what’s natural.”

Carl shifted on the couch, and Rick took the invitation to sit beside him. “It got better, though. But then I started feeling bad about _that_. I thought I’d be a total mess today, you know? Like last time. But I’m not. I think I’m okay. That feels messed up, too.”

Rick draped an arm around his son’s shoulders and squeezed him, turning his chin to rest against the top of his tousled hair. “I know how you feel,” he said simply.

Carl returned the hug before leaning back to look up at Rick. His remaining dark blue eye darted back and forth between his father’s two. “You’re dating again,” he said quietly. Rick jerked in surprise, face falling, and Carl shook his head quickly. “No, I’m not mad. I just wondered when you were gonna tell me.” He smiled faintly. “You used to never go out, and then suddenly we’re with Maggie or Beth every weekend?”

“I’m sorry,” Rick said instantly, feeling guilt rising in him like an icy tide, “I’ve been spending too much time away, I know, I -“

“Dad, no,” Carl interrupted, smiling a little more, “it’s not that. That’s not what I meant. I’m happy that…you know. That you’re seeing someone. I don’t want you to be lonely,” he said softly, looking down at his hands.

Rick felt his heart crack a little in his chest for his son, who was far, far too old for fourteen. “Thank you,” he said simply, trying to fight the stinging in his eyes. If he let any tears fall, he was afraid he wouldn’t be able to staunch the flood of them. From the way Carl was keeping his eyes lowered and fixed in his lap, he imagined he was having the same struggle.

Carl cleared his throat and shifted. “So? Is it serious? When are we gonna meet?”

Rick rubbed at the prickly stubble at his jaw. “I don’t know,” he began uncertainly, “I…don’t know exactly…I don’t know if…”

Carl was watching him closely, and he frowned suddenly. “What? She’s jerking you around? That’s bull, Dad. Don’t let her do that.”

“He,” Rick corrected, “and it’s not that. Not exactly. It’s just that it’s so new, and I don’t know…where we stand.” _I don’t know what he wants_ is what he wanted to say, but he couldn’t say it to his fourteen-year-old son.

Carl’s frown deepened. “Well, then you need to talk, because it sucks to try and be with someone if you don’t know what they’re thinking.”

Rick was torn between warmth at Carl’s protectiveness and chagrin that his teenage son was counseling him - very astutely, actually - on the importance of communication in relationships. “We _do_ need to talk,” Rick agreed softly. “How are things going with Sophia?”

“Good,” Carl said, smiling a little. “You know. She knows what it’s like to have a cop for a parent, so…”

Rick laughed ruefully. “Oh, the sheriff is worse than I am, Carl. Come on, now.”

“Yeah,” he agreed with a snort, “I guess you’re right. At least you never put out an APB on us just because we snuck out of school together.”

“Well…to be fair, she beat me to it. You can’t be scarin’ us like that, Carl,” he protested, meeting his son’s exasperated look, “you know that. We just worry about you.”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” Carl said, rolling his eye. Any disdain in the gesture was undercut by his grin. “We never did it again, right?”

Rick ruffled his hair affectionately. “Nah. You spared us.”

Carl stood, trying to smooth down his dark locks again. “I’m gonna call her,” he said, dropping his gaze. “Okay?”

“You should,” Rick answered, throat tightening again. “Go on.” He watched Carl head up the stairs, and his phone suddenly felt heavy in his pocket. He nearly jumped out of his skin when it rang suddenly, and he knew before he looked that it was Negan. He had a way of calling just when Rick was thinking about him, as if he could feel his thoughts tugging at him from miles away. “Hey,” Rick croaked into the phone.

“Hey. How you holdin’ up, baby?”

Rick eyes slid shut as the familiar voice, low and rumbling like distant thunder, seemed to caress him. “All right,” Rick murmured, “thanks for askin’.”

“Rick junior and the princess? They all right?”

Rick smiled and made a faint noise in his throat. “They’re doin’ fine. Judith…she’s too young, but Carl…Jesus, Negan. He’s just about grown-up. He handles all this better than I do - swear to god he does.”

“Yeah, well, if he’s that fucking tough I guess he’s got his daddy to thank for it. Mama too, probably.”

“Yeah,” Rick whispered, voice drawn tight and thin, “he’s a lot like her.”

There was a soft, easy silence, and Rick could almost feel his comforting presence in it. When Negan spoke again, there was a hesitance in it that was unlike him. “Honey, I…don’t wanna fucking spring this on you today, but I gotta ask you something.”

“What’s that?”

“I got an offer…job offer. Helping someone set up a garage. It’d be a temporary gig, couple months I guess, but…”

 _Oh, my god,_ Rick thought, _this is it. He’s going to goddamn Montana or something, and he’s about to tell me that this is it._ The breath left his lungs, and he just about crushed the phone in his suddenly slick, sweaty hand.

“It’s down your way, Rick. Remember Lurch? He’s having himself a career change, and he needs the help.”

Rick couldn’t understand what he was saying for a moment. “Needs help?” he echoed faintly. “He…you mean here? You’re coming here?”

“You all right with that, baby?”

“Why wouldn’t I be?” Rick asked blankly, feeling almost nauseated with the sudden shift in his emotions from fear to relief.

“Hell, I don’t know. Seemed like something I should run by you first before I just turned up in your backyard like a bad fucking penny.”

Rick chuckled weakly. “Negan, I…yes. Yes.”

Negan grunted in concern. “Baby, you all right? Shit, I knew I should’ve waited to call you.”

“No, no, I’m all right,” Rick whispered, “I am.” He wasn’t, exactly, because it was too much - too many feelings at once, and the sudden, tentative happiness that fluttered to life in him when he finally understood what Negan was telling him - _coming down here, coming close_ \- mixed queasily with the grief.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. Of course.”

There was another silence. “Oh, darlin’,” Negan said with gentle regret, “you’re not all right. ‘Course you’re fuckin’ not. Today is…I should’ve waited. You forgive me, don’t you? I’m shit at waiting.”

Rick let out a long, shuddering sigh. “You comin’ down here?”

“I am.”

“Good. That’s good. Honey,” he added shyly.

The grief finally found him in the shower that night, when the kids were asleep, the house was quiet, and he was finally ready to surrender. He sobbed thickly under the hot spray, braced against the smooth tile. Carl had been right - the day had not been as bad as it could have been, as bad as he had feared, and somehow that hurt. He was healing, letting someone else into the heart that had always been only hers, and the fact of that roiled guiltily in his gut.

 _Don’t do that,_ he told himself tiredly. _She wouldn’t want that._ That brought a fresh sob to his lips, and he bent at the waist to let it fall helplessly from him. He cried until he couldn’t, and he crawled into bed without drying off properly, too sick with sorrow to care.

—

Since Negan told him he would be coming down to help Jim set up his garage, the thought had beaten around the inside of his mind like a trapped bird - _what does it mean? what does it mean?_ He wanted it to mean _something_ , but he wasn’t sure that it did. It felt like they were building something together, slowly, but the insecurity hung over Rick like a poisonous cloud. His life was messy, and there were mines underfoot. Who would want that? His own best _friend_ hadn’t wanted that.

The memory had him laughing bitterly out loud to himself as he drove. It was Sunday, a little over a week since Negan had told him about the job, and he had just officially taken up residence at a motel near the site of Jim’s would-be garage. _We’re always meeting in motels,_ Rick thought drily. Beth had taken the kids over to a school fair, and that left Rick a few hours to visit Negan’s new accommodations and, as Negan had put it, _welcome him to the neighborhood_. He was half-hard just thinking about it, and he shook his head at himself. Maybe that’s all this was destined to be, he reflected sadly. Lust consummated in a series of motel rooms. He shook the gloomy thoughts away hard. When the hell had he gotten so goddamn _brooding_?

Jim lived on the bucolic outskirts of the county, where houses were scarcer, trees were thicker, and people were more distrustful of uniforms. Calls out this far were bound to be unpleasant, and Rick had stared into his fair share of double-barrels wielded by the local citizenry. He was hardly in the mood for that, and he was grateful that he wasn’t going out this way as a cop, for once. He was grateful, also, that the motel Negan had landed in wasn’t an active crime scene. It had been once or twice in the past, but that was due to the clientele, not the owner - she was a sharp-tongued, flint-eyed older woman who had the unpleasant and daring habit of chain-smoking within sparking distance of her oxygen tank. She was known to make moonshine in a bathtub or two, but she wouldn’t abide the more serious offenses on her premises, and she called the county law down without hesitation when she felt a line was crossed. Rick liked and trusted her, and he was secretly pleased that Negan had landed under her roof.

He pulled up to the long, low building with its rusted old sign - The Cozy Inn. It hardly looked that - it looked like it had been left to be claimed by the surrounding wilderness. Weeds erupted from the cracked pavement, and Rick stepped carefully around the buckled, crumbling patches as a bird squawked unpleasantly in the distance. He walked over to the building, eyes searching until he found the faded numbers he was looking for. He knocked lightly against the peeling paint of the old door. He heard a bang and a muffled oath, and he felt his heart swell with affection and eager desire. The door swung open, and Negan all but dragged him inside, grinning.

“Oh, Rick, Rick, _Rick_. Can you fucking believe this Bates Motel shit? Fucking look at this.” Negan spun him around to face the room, nuzzling into the back of neck and head as he gripped his waist.

“It’s, uh…” Rick’s mind was getting cloudy under Negan's immediate assault on his senses, but he tried to take in the surroundings. The furnishings were sparse and looked like they had seen better days on the whole. “It’s nice,” he offered, and Negan erupted into laughter behind him.

He spun Rick around in his arms and kissed him hard, suddenly all grasping hands and greedy tongue. “Baby, you don’t know how happy I am to see you,” Negan murmured against his lips when he finally released them.

Rick pressed himself more tightly against him, sliding his hands under his jacket. “I do know,” he countered quietly, feeling his whole body tingle with contentment.

Negan chuckled and pressed a soft kiss to his parted lips. “You know what the innkeep - who is one hell of a lady, by the way, she’s got a fucking brass set on her - you know what she told me? She said she found a fucking gang of possums in here earlier in the week, but she shoo’ed ‘em, so don’t worry myself none.” Negan’s voice dropped to mimic a slow, thick drawl. “Possums, Rick, goddamn motherfucking possums - are you kidding me? This deep South shit is something else. That’s all I fucking need - wake up to a damn possum biting me in the taint.”

“You _are_ out in the sticks,” Rick acknowledged with a smile. “And I know the lady that runs this place. She still smokin’ on top of her oxygen tank? I’ve just about gotten down on my knees and begged her not to, but she just laughs at me.”

Negan gave a groan that melted into chuckle. “Sure as shit she was. Jesus Christ, I was sure I was about to get blown to hell.”

“Mm-hm. People are used to doin’ things their own way out here. It ain’t easy for us, either, when we get called out this way. Folks don’t trust the uniform.”

Negan cocked his head back and gave him a wide, suggestive grin. “ _Uniform_ , huh? When am I going to get to see you in your _uniform_ , Rick?”

Rick flushed, smiling. “Soon, I guess. I, uh, brought you somethin’,” he said, gesturing back towards a paper bag that he had abandoned on a small table near the door.

Negan raised an eyebrow. “I really fucking hope that’s alcohol.”

Rick shook his head, grinning, and extricated himself reluctantly from Negan’s embrace. He walked over to the bag and reached inside, pulling out the glass bottle of sweet tea. “Welcome to the deep South,” he said, eyes twinkling with mischief.

Laughter boomed out from the other man, and he seized Rick’s arm to drag him across the room and towards the single chair crowded up against the rickety folding table. Negan sank into it, pulling Rick into his lap. “All right,” he said, taking the bottle and twisting off the top. Let’s fucking do this. To the deep South!” He lifted the bottle at Rick in a toast and took a long swallow. Rick wound an arm around his neck and watched him, smiling. “Damn,” Negan said appreciatively. “That shit is good. I haven’t had sweet tea since I was a kid. My granny used to make it all the time. She’d mix it up so thick and sweet that it was like drinking syrup.”

He handed it to Rick, who drank slowly, letting the sugary taste roll over his tongue. “Your granny, huh?”

“Yes, Rick,” he said with exaggerated patience. “My granny - I had one. What’d you think? That I crawled out of a pool of motor oil next to a Harley?”

Rick laughed and took another long swallow. He could feel Negan watching him, and he felt himself flush under his gaze. He set the bottle down and slipped his other arm around his neck. “You like it, huh? The…the tea,” he added swiftly, flushing redder.

Negan shot him a naughty grin, shooting his eyebrows up suggestively, but his eyes on him were soft. “I like it,” he answered, and his hand slid across Rick’s cheek, urging his head down to his.

Rick lost himself in it completely - in the way their mouths worked over and against each other, alternating between slow, wet, lazy kisses and interludes of heated urgency. Teeth caught at the soft flesh of his lips, bringing Rick just to the edge of pain before Negan released him, soothing over the spot with his tongue, and the dance would begin all over again. Rick could taste the tangy sweetness of the tea he had brought him on his lips and in his mouth, and somehow that pleased him in a possessive way that surprised him a little. He pulled back slightly, just enough so that he could speak. “Take me to bed,” he whispered against Negan’s lips.

Negan’s arms tightened around him in an instant, and he was lifted into the air. He clung reflexively to Negan’s shoulders, half-pleased, half-embarrassed to be carried in a way that was becoming familiar. Negan laid him carefully on the ancient bed, which immediately gave a loud creak of protest. He heard Negan laugh above him. “Shit. Good thing this place is fucking abandoned, because we are going to make an ass-load of noise.” He stripped his shirt off above him, and Rick ran his hands up his hard belly to his chest.

“Yeah,” he agreed before pulling Negan over him.

They did make an ass-load of noise, thanks to the querulous creaks of the bed beneath them. It creaked as they stripped off each other’s clothes, revealing warm, flushed skin. It creaked when Rick writhed with breathless pleasure as Negan’s fingers danced within him. And it creaked when Negan sank into him as he cried out helplessly, head thrown back, thighs clamped around his lover’s waist, fingers digging into his shoulders hard enough to bruise. Negan rained kisses on whatever part of him he could reach as he rocked him on the noisy old bed, and Rick felt his heart throb with longing. He was on top of him, inside him, and somehow it still wasn’t enough. He felt tears sting his eyes, and he blinked hard, forcing them away. _Christ, not now._

They lay contentedly in each other’s arms afterwards, sweat beaded on their skin.

“Hell of a welcoming party,” Negan rumbled into his damp hair, and Rick chuckled.

He angled his head up to kiss Negan’s scratchy cheek. “Mm-hm. Welcome.”

Negan stretched lazily beneath him before settling his hand comfortably on Rick’s backside. “Okay, local boy. Tell me everything I need to know.”

“Like what?” Rick asked, smiling.

“For starters, where can I drink in this town? I talked with Jim for about fifteen-fucking-minutes before I realized I was going to need it.”

“You don’t want to drink around here, that’s for damn sure. You’re liable to go blind. There’s a place in town off Main Street called Hovarth’s. The drinks are good, the prices are decent, and no one sells meth in the bathrooms. Actually, the owner is a friend.”

“Yeah? Well, any friend of yours is a friend of mine, baby. Especially if they have liquor.”

Rick kissed the underside of his jaw softly. “I have to get back, Negan,” he murmured regretfully. “Kids’ll be home in an hour.” He rose slowly from the bed, reluctant to leave his lover’s warmth even in the heavy heat of the day. Negan was reluctant to let him go, hands clinging to his sweat-slick skin and making him chuckle as he playfully fought him to get away. He could feel Negan’s gaze on him as he gathered up his clothes. “I’m off on Tuesday,” he said softly as he pulled on his jeans. “I have to get the kids from school later on, but maybe we could…spend the morning together.” Rick cringed a little, hearing the need in his own voice.

Negan rose from the bed and walked over to him, heedless of his own nakedness. “I’d like that, Georgia. You show me around this place. Okay?” He caught him in his arms and gave him another slow, soft, lingering kiss. “Happy I’m here, lover boy?”

“Yes,” Rick whispered against his lips, and to his horror, his eyes began to sting again. He swallowed, collecting himself. “Watch out for the possums.”

—

The next day, Rick was sitting at his desk at the station, making steady progress on a pile of forms. Shane was off drinking coffee and trying to chat up the lovely woman who had just taken over the job of receptionist. Jacqui met his advances with a calm dignity, and Rick had the feeling that Shane’s brand of rascally charm wasn’t going to get him anywhere with her. Rick was surprised when he heard her soft voice at his back.

“Phone call, deputy. Someone calling in an assault and battery - can I patch them over to you?”

“Yes, ma’am. Thanks. Wasn’t Shane up there a minute back?”

She smiled, her warm eyes sparking at him. “He had to hurry away just as the call came in. Curious.”

Rick laughed ruefully. “He did, huh? I’ll take care of it, then.”

Jacqui inclined her head and moved away gracefully as Rick picked up the phone.

“Good morning, Rick. Or at least I hope _you’re_ having a good morning. _My_ good morning has been interrupted.”

“Dale? What happened? You all right?”

“Merle Dixon happened. There’s no damage to my person, but I can’t say the same for one of my patrons or for my property, deputy.”

Rick groaned softly and rubbed the bridge of his nose. Merle was a frequent flier, and he was just about the last thing that Rick wanted to deal with on a Monday morning. “Is the vic still there, Dale?”

“No, he skedaddled. Merle is still on the premises, however, as he’s being restrained by another patron. I’d appreciate it if you boys hurried down. Most unpleasant situation.”

Rick was tempted to ask whether he meant Merle being on the premises or the assault itself, but he held his tongue. “Coming right over, Dale.” He hung up the phone and scanned the station for Shane. He was hovering over the coffee machine, watching Rick from across the room with a rueful expression.

“Don’t tell me we actually gotta work,” he groaned as Rick approached.

“I’ve been working all day, Shane,” Rick pointed out wryly, “but yeah. Merle Dixon.”

Shane let out a string of curses illustrating what he thought of Merle Dixon and abandoned his coffee on the small table.

The bar wasn’t far from the station, and it was less than five minutes from when Rick hung up that they were pulling up to the neat, well-kept building.

“I wonder what the fuck it is this time,” Shane muttered as he climbed from the car. “Selling again, I’ll fucking bet.”

“He said he was goin’ clean,” Rick sighed, and he couldn’t even be annoyed at the condescending snort Shane gave in reply. He knew how goddamn naive that sounded, but Merle had just done time for his most recent turn at being the local Walter White, and he had left a kid brother behind him when he did. A kid brother who was essentially a recluse, who had been completely lost without him. Whatever Merle had left of a heart was for that baby brother. Rick had visited the man in prison at his request, and he had broken down weeping before Rick’s shocked eyes, begging for another chance to clean up his act for his brother’s sake. Rick had believed him, and he testified to that effect at his parole hearing. He wondered if that had been the right thing to do, after all. It had certainly felt like the right thing when Daryl charged at him after the hearing, gripping him in a tight, suffocating hug before fleeing straight out of the building and probably melting right back into the woods he seemed to practically live in.

He pulled himself out of his reverie as he walked into the bar, steeling himself for what he was about to see. It took a moment for his eyes to adjust to the dark interior, and shock jolted through him when his gaze fell on the black-clad figure with his knee in the center of Merle Dixon’s back. Negan glanced up at the sound of the deputies’ heavy approaching footfalls, and an immediate and sly smile bloomed on his face when he saw Rick.

“Officers,” he paused, his expression one of mock solemnity. “Thank _goodness_ you’re here.” He winked at Rick.

Shane startled beside him, and he squinted at Rick and then at the pair on the floor. “What the hell happened?”

Negan shrugged. “Hell if I know. He just started beating on the kid - “

“That cocksucker owes me money!” Merle raged suddenly, his words muffled with the way his face was pressed to the floor.

Negan gave him an annoyed shake where he had him pinned by the back of the neck. “Is that right, asshole? And how’s he supposed to give it to you if you put him in the fucking hospital? He was beating on him, so I pulled him off. Kid lit out of here. So here we are.” He looked up and caught Rick’s eyes, and the frown that had overtaken his face when Merle spoke dissolved. He licked his lips, his eyes roaming Rick’s body shamelessly. “And here _you_ are.”

Rick’s face was hot, and he was at an utter loss for words. Finding Negan here had disoriented him, and he could feel Shane’s bewildered stare on him.

“Interferin’ ball-lickin’ pig-fuckin’ son of _bitch_ ,” Merle snarled, and Negan laughed above him.

“You know, I think I actually kind of _like_ this asshole. But any time one of you wants to fucking take over and start doing police shit, let me know. I had to leave my fucking drink when Deliverance over here started fucking shit up, and I’d like to get back to it.”

“It got knocked over,” Dale called from behind the bar, and Negan groaned. “I’ll pour you another. On the house.”

Shane walked forward, pulling out his cuffs. “Christ, Merle. You’re under fucking arrest. Anything you say or do can and will be used against you in a court of law, you stupid sonofabitch.”

Negan rose to his feet as Shane cuffed Merle. Rick cleared his throat, wincing a little as Shane continued to swear his way through the Miranda rights. Negan was looking at him, head tilted. “Why don’t you come over here and take my statement, officer?” Negan murmured, and Rick felt like everyone _must_ have heard the open insinuation in it, but no one reacted. Shane nodded at him, shoving Merle towards the front door. Negan jerked his head towards the bar before heading that way, taking the glass tumbler Dale handed him with a smile.

“Thank you, sir,” Dale said, shaking his head. “I truly don’t know what would have happened if you hadn’t stopped him. Merle’s usually more bark than bite, but…”

“But he’s methed out,” Negan said wryly. “Yeah. I know the look.”

Rick sighed beside him, dropping his head into his hand. “He was doin’ well for a while,” he said regretfully. “He really was. He was never gonna be citizen of the year, but he was cleanin’ up his act. Now it sounds like he’s gotten back into something. Maybe dealing.” He felt Negan’s hand on his shoulder and looked up.

“You all right?” he asked softly, and Rick felt a tiny throb of gratitude.

“Yeah. I mean…I’m just sorry for ‘im. And his family. What he’s got left, anyway.”

“You’re a good man, Officer Grimes,” Dale said kindly from behind the counter. “I don’t suppose you’ll let me offer you a drink?”

Rick shook his head, smiling faintly. “Thank you, Dale, but I’m on the clock.”

“Every time,” Dale said in a conspiratorial aside to Negan. “The man is virtuous. Well, I need to attend to the other patrons. You know where to find me, officer.”

Rick turned his head and found that Negan was staring intently at him. “What?” he asked, suddenly self-conscious.

Negan smiled slowly, knitting his eyebrows. “You’re sweet,” he said, without a hint of teasing.

A memory enveloped Rick’s thoughts - Negan laying over him, pressing his body into the soft mattress beneath. _You’re sweet,_ Rick had said to him as he wound his arms around his neck. He dropped his eyes and felt his blush burn his cheeks.

Negan’s hand found his wrist and tugged. “Come on. I was sitting over there.”

Rick hesitantly allowed him to lead him to a leather booth tucked into a corner. Negan slid into it, tugging Rick after him. “Negan, I’m workin’,” he protested as the other man pulled him flush against his side.

Negan grinned. “I know, Rick. You’re working _me_.” He winked at him again, tongue at the corner of his mouth. Rick found his eyes drifting to it. “Taking my statement, remember?”

Rick blinked, shifting his eyes from Negan’s mouth to his eyes, which were sparkling in amusement. “R-right.” He fumbled for a moment and pulled out his notepad, flustered. “What do you have to add to your statement?”

“Nothing,” Negan said with a roguish smile. “You pretty much have it.” He took a long sip of his drink, eyes mischievous over the edge of the glass.

Rick gave him an exasperated look, smiling back in spite of himself. “Well, thank you for helping out. Kind of dangerous to throw yourself in the middle of a fight, though.”

Negan shrugged, winding his leg around Rick’s beneath the table. “Wasn’t much of a fight. Like I said. He was just whaling on the poor kid. You gonna be able to find him? The kid, I mean. He was bleedin’ pretty good when he ran off.”

“I think so,” Rick answered softly, touched by his concern, “although he might not be all that happy to see us, considering that he was probably buyin’ from Merle.” Rick reached up without thinking and brushed at a bead of sweat at Negan’s temple. “Take that jacket off,” he insisted, smiling, “you’re roasting in it.”

Negan chuckled, and then he slid it off with a wink, leaning forward slightly and reaching his muscular arm out onto the table in front of where Rick sat, almost embracing him. His white teeshirt clung to his body. “Is that what _y’all_ wanted to see?” he teased, and Rick felt suddenly hot all over at the memories that conjured up.

“Negan, please,” he whispered, lowering his eyes. “I’m on duty.”

He ducked his head and laughed, but he obligingly withdrew his arm. “That other cop,” he paused, tilting his head. “That’s your… _buddy_ Shane, isn’t it?”

Rick felt the faintest prickle of unease at his tone. “It is,” he said cautiously. Negan took another swallow of his drink and grunted. “Negan…” Rick struggled to put words to his thoughts, and as he did so, he became aware of someone approaching them. He turned to see Shane striding towards them with that same squinting, appraising look he had had on his face earlier.

“Y’all know each other,” he said slowly as he reached them.

Rick swallowed, suddenly very aware of Negan’s leg wrapped around his beneath the table. “Shane, this is Negan. We, uh…we met up in Virginia when the Ford broke down.”

“That is when we _met_ ,” Negan agreed, rolling the last word in his mouth like something sweet before taking another slow slip of the amber liquid. Rick shivered, unable to help himself. Negan gestured towards the other side of the booth. “Have a seat, officer.”

Shane slipped into the booth warily. “So. What else can you tell us about what went down?”

Negan shrugged. “Nothing more than I already told Deputy Rick over here.” Negan slid his ankle up the back of Rick’s calf, and Rick desperately fought to keep his expression even. “Local hero had a meth meltdown.”

Shane rapped his knuckles against the table, frowning. “Yeah. You called it. That your scene?”

“Shane,” Rick protested, but Negan was laughing.

“Nah, boy. Not my scene. Fucks up your teeth.” Negan flashed his gleaming smile, and there was no mistaking the edge of mocking in it.

Shane returned the smile coldly. “I’m only askin’ because guys that look like you - you know, ink, leather - tend to be mixed up in that shit. I’m not tryin’ to be rude. Just the way shit is. They don’t call it biker crank for nothin’, right?”

“For Christ’s sake, Shane,” Rick said, horrified.

Negan only chuckled, and he lightly extended the arm that was curled on the table, flexing it to display some of the ink in question. It was predominately barbed wire, twined around the arm from bicep to forearm with little red drops of blood splashed here and there on the silvery thorns. It _did_ look dangerous, but Rick knew that Shane’s aggressive line of questioning had nothing to do with that. “What, this? Tip of the iceberg, officer. I _am_ pretty fucking inked up.” He curled his leg more tightly around Rick’s under the able, as if silently urging him to agree. “But no, I’m not a meth head. I get my kicks other ways.”

Rick felt like he might actually burst with sheer embarrassment from the innuendo Negan was laying on for his benefit. It was like the other man was whispering directly in his ear in a secret language, kindling a heat between his thighs that he desperately tried to fight. “Okay. Good. That’s enough of that. We need to get Merle to the station.”

“What’re you doin’ down here? Pretty far from Virginia,” Shane went on, as if Rick had not spoken at all.

He felt a flash of annoyance as he stared across the table at his friend. He knew this mood on Shane - single-minded and unpleasant, like a dog with a bone between its teeth. “Shane…”

Negan put a hand on his knee under the table, out of sight, and squeezed gently. His touch was reassuring, and Rick felt himself relax the barest bit. “My boss has a cousin down here in Georgia who opened a garage outside town. He needed some help getting things set up, and Georgia…Georgia’s fucking gorgeous. And pretty wild when you get close, you know? Untamed. I wanted to see more of it, so what can I say? I jumped at the chance.” Negan’s fingers rubbed lightly over his knee, and Rick felt his flush deepen with pleasure for once rather than embarrassment.

Rick looked up and caught Shane’s eyes, puzzled and angry, and he felt his stomach drop. “We need to get Merle to the station,” he said again, suddenly desperate to put distance between the two men.

“Merle ain’t goin’ nowhere, Rick. Don’t get your panties in a damn twist,” Shane snapped, and Rick could feel something shift in Negan beside him.

The other man slowly withdrew his hand from his knee, and Rick turned his head to him. He felt his stomach fall further at the expression on Negan’s face. He was still wearing his easy smile, but malice glimmered in the depths of his eyes as he stared challengingly at Shane. “No, he _ain’t_ ,” Negan drawled in a mocking echo of Shane’s accent. “So let’s just shoot the shit for a while longer, right? Let me ask _you_ something, deputy. Are you as much of a limp-dick piece of shit as you’re coming across right now, or do you just give shitty fucking first impressions? Because I have to tell you, this redneck Dragnet act? That shit is ri-fucking-diculous. Put your tiny dick _away_ , Barney Fife. Nobody’s fucking impressed. I know I’m not.” Rick froze, staring at the man beside him with widened eyes, hardly believing the vicious, volcanic stream of words that had just issued forth.

Shane’s head had rocked back as if he had been slapped, his expression thunderous. “Who the _fuck_ do you think you are?” he cried, furious.

Negan tilted his head, a smirk curling the corner of his mouth. “You know who I am, man. I’m your new _buddy_. Any friend of Rick’s is a friend of mine. Come on, buddy. Can’t you take a little good-natured shit from your friends? Or does it get your _panties_ in a twist?”

Shane stared, face white with fury and clearly at a loss for words. “You…what the _fuck_? How do you even know Rick? You met when his car broke down, what the fuck does that even m-”

“That’s _enough_ ,” Rick snapped, his words cracking like a whiplash and causing both men to start. “Shane, we’re leaving. We have the statement. Go to the damn car.” Shane shifted his eyes to him, astonished. For a terrible second, Rick thought he would refuse and that he might actually have to get between the two men. Wouldn’t _that_ be an amusing incident to explain to the sheriff - how one of her deputies had gotten into a fist-fight with a civilian in a bar after responding to a routine Merle Dixon-related call? A fight over…what? _Me,_ Rick realized with cold, disbelieving horror. To his relief, Shane rose up and swept out of the bar, nearly knocking down an unfortunate man who was entering at the same time as he shot through the front door. Rick twisted to face Negan, glaring.

“What?” he asked, affecting innocence.

Rick shook his head. “Don’t do that. I know he was bein’ an asshole, but _really_?”

The other man shrugged, looking utterly unperturbed sitting there with his drink in his hand, and Rick wanted to shake him. “He started it.”

Rick groaned. “Oh, good. That’s real good, Negan.”

Negan cocked his head to the side and studied Rick silently for a moment. “You know what?” he mused. He lifted a hand and pointed two fingers at the door that Shane had slammed through. “I hate that fuckin’ guy.”

“Because of what I told you,” Rick sighed, feeling melancholy swell inside him and overwhelm the irritation. “It was just a thing that happened once, Negan. It don’t mean…” he struggled. “He’s not what you think. Really. We been friends since we were kids.” He looked up, and Negan’s head was thrown back, his dark gaze inscrutable behind his lashes. Rick froze, held by the roiling depths of his eyes.

Negan was silent for a long moment. “Gimme a kiss, Georgia,” he said finally, his voice a sultry rumble.

Rick startled where he sat, flushing. “Here? I’m workin’.” Negan gave him a faint, almost mocking smile, shooting his brows up. “And I’m kinda mad at you,” Rick added. Negan’s smile widened. Rick found himself leaning forward with no conscious memory of deciding to do so, and his mouth found Negan’s. He could taste the burn of the liquor on his lips and tongue.

There was a clink of glasses from somewhere behind him, and he drew back, shocked back into the present moment. “I’m…I’m on duty,” he said, feeling disoriented. He slid from the booth and stood.

Negan’s eyes followed him, and he lifted the glass in a salute. “Call me when you’re not, darlin’.”

Rick gave a jerky nod, face burning. He began to turn, but a hand on his wrist stilled him. Rick looked down at him in surprise, and the dark eyes that met his were probing.

“Did I just fucking…did I just make shit awkward for you, Rick? Is he gonna give you a hard time about the shit I said? Darlin’, that’s not what I meant to do at all. I’m sorry,” he said, and the concern in his voice squeezed Rick’s chest.

He shook his head, unable to tear his eyes away from the other man’s. “No,” he croaked, “no, it’s…it’s fine. It’s gonna be fine.” He smiled weakly. “Don’t be so goddamn _mean_ next time. Please?”

“Whatever you say, Georgia,” Negan answered softly, and he ran his fingers along Rick’s hand as he slowly pulled away.

—

“You’re fucking that guy,” Shane said the moment Rick slipped into the passenger side of the squad car. Merle had been collected by another set of deputies, which was a mercy - an audience had never stopped Shane from saying just what was on his mind.

He stared at his friend. “I…how…I - “ he broke off, collecting himself and starting again. “What makes you say that?”

“Aw, please, Rick, it’s obvious. _That’s_ who you were talkin’ about when you said you were seein’ someone? I mean, what the _hell_? _That_ asshole? Are you fuckin’ crazy? That’s not your goddamned type.”

Rick felt the first, faint unfurling of anger deep in his chest. “Not my type, huh?” he muttered, eyes sweeping the man beside him. “Dark haired and pushy?” He regretted it instantly when he felt Shane’s hand land on his leg, far too high up on the thigh.

“Rick, I - “

“No,” he said sharply, pulling away. “Shane, I’m sorry…that wasn’t an…invitation.” He lapsed into unhappy silence, feeling Shane fuming beside him. He stared out the window, praying that his friend would let it go.

He didn’t.

“Why not, Rick?” he said finally. “Why not? We…we had something. We could have something, couldn’t we? I know I’ve been fucking around a lot lately, Rick, sowin’ some oats, but it don’t mean that we can’t have something. You an’ me - “

Rick’s stomach was in free fall. “Shane,” he cut in carefully, feeling his way around his own words like he was handling a steadily ticking bomb, “you don’t want that. You don’t. We talked about this. You like the way things are. You like…bein’ free. Don’t you?”

Shane was silent, and the light of the morning sun shining brightly through the window cast his profile into harsh relief. “We had something,” he insisted.

 _No,_ Rick thought, and his head throbbed. “I think we should just let the past be the past,” he said finally.

Shane gave a bitter scoff. “Yeah, I get it. You goin’ through some sort of phase. Leather thing.”

“Shane,” Rick said warningly.

“You told me it was either settle down with you or nothin’. You said you didn’t wanna just fuck. What the hell, Rick? What happened to that? Don’t tell me you think leather daddy over there is gonna take the kids to school?”

“ _Shane_.”

The cold steel in his voice cut straight through Shane’s stubborn pique, and he fell silent, lips pressed in a thin, white line. He was silent for the remainder of the ride. The remainder of their shift. When they left the station together, he stomped off and peeled out of the parking lot with an angry screech of tires. The throbbing in Rick’s head had graduated to a relentless pounding. He slid into his car and leaned his head back against the seat, eyes closed.

 _I can’t believe this,_ he thought dully. _Jealous. He’s fucking jealous._ Shane had always been jealous, ever since they were children. Jealous of anyone that took from him, be it attention or friends or toys. He could be downright _vicious_ when some other kid played with his toys. Rage mixed with the unhappiness that had risen up and choked him, and he found himself groping for his phone.

“Where are you?” he asked immediately when a soft click announced that his call had been answered.

“Motel Possum, darlin’. Home sweet home. Where else?”

“Can I come over?” Rick asked, and he tried to keep his tone even. He could tell by the beat of silence on the other end of the line that he had failed.

“That’s what I want you to do, Georgia. Come over. Come to me. That’s what I’m always waiting for, baby. You know it.”

Rick’s head fell back against the stiff seat behind him as the warm seduction of the words wrapped around him like a blanket. He wanted him so suddenly, so intensely that it set his teeth on edge.

“You’re not okay, are you, baby?” Negan asked quietly, after a moment of silence.

“I’ll be right there,” Rick said, aware he was not answering the question. He texted Maggie with trembling fingers - _working late, can you stay on a little longer?_ \- hating himself for the lie but feeling almost out of his mind with need.

Rick nearly leapt on him the moment he opened the door. If Negan was startled, it lasted less than the half-second it took for Rick’s lips to close over his. One strong arm snaked around his waist, and he shoved the door shut before pressing Rick back against it, trapping him between it and his warm body. Rick kissed him with an aching sort of desperation, burying a hand in his hair and running through the dark strands.

Negan’s gripped his jaw and turned his head into the door, sucking on the exposed flesh of his throat. His lips pressed into his ear. “What’s wrong?” he whispered, his breath tickling the sensitive skin there.

Rick felt his forehead crease. “Nothing,” he replied, trying to tug Negan back down to his neck.

Negan resisted him, but one hand jerked Rick’s shirt free from where it had been tucked into his crisp khaki pants. Rick made a noise in his throat as the warm hand slid beneath it, running over the flesh of his belly. “Don’t lie to me,” Negan breathed, and the hand plunged down to clasp between his legs.

Rick’s hands fell to Negan’s arms, gripping them desperately, as the hot swell of arousal made everything fuzzy. He knocked his head back against the door with a soft bang, hearing himself whimper, and Negan kissed the spot just below his ear lightly as he palmed him through his clothes. He tried to say something, but it came out as a breathy, hiccuping moan. He pushed Negan towards the bed, staggering against him as he tugged at the other man’s clothes. Negan stripped them off swiftly before attacking Rick’s uniform, mouth sealed to his throat as his fingers flew over the buttons of his shirt. Rick heard a few pop and skitter across the floor, and he didn’t care in the least. He fell against the bed and lifted his hips to let Negan pull his pants off. He held his arms up shakily for the other man.

“Rick,” Negan sighed as he went to him, letting himself be folded up in his arms, “what’s wrong?”

“Negan, _please_. I just need you right now,” Rick said, ashamed of his own desperation. He moaned as wet lips slid over his sensitive throat, teeth dragging over the flesh there.

“You’re so fucking sweet when you beg me, baby. _Jesus_ ,” Negan groaned, and it sounded pained, “you don’t have to beg. I’ll do anything you fucking want, Rick. You’ve got me by the goddamn balls.” He surged up to Rick’s mouth, tongue invading and licking every inch of the soft, wet cavern as Rick panted under the assault.

When Negan pulled back to breathe, Rick twisted around beneath him and rose shakily to his knees, lifting his hips in invitation. “Like this,” he said simply before burying his face in the thin sheets.

Negan swore behind him as he ran his hands over his thighs and ass, squeezing hungrily. “Ooh, honey,” he muttered. “I am gonna make you _scream_.” He punctuated that with a firm slap to one smooth cheek, and Rick made a breathless noise of encouragement into the mattress.

It wasn’t an empty threat, and Rick was glad he had his face pressed into the sheets to muffle his ringing cries. At least he was, until Negan reached down and buried a hand in his hair, pulling his face up with a sharp tug. Rick gave a low moan at the stinging pull, shivering. He felt helpless, pinned by Negan’s hard length sliding roughly into him, and he was delirious with the white-hot pleasure of it.

“Say it again, Rick,” Negan growled breathlessly above him, “say you need me. Say it, fucking say it, baby, _please_.” He sounded shaken, and Rick wanted to touch him, soothe him, but he couldn’t just then - he was being fucked to within an inch of his life, and all of his muscles felt like hot caramel.

He had to settle for caressing him with words. “I need you,” he cried, “I need you, Negan, baby, that’s so, so fucking good, I _need_ …!” His own words unraveled him, and he lost himself in the waves of his release as it crashed over him and pulled him down to oblivion. The first thing he became conscious of in its aftermath was Negan’s fingers in his hair, rubbing gently over his scalp. Rick shifted slowly with a low, contented hum, uncurling and stretching like a lazy cat within the warm confines of the limbs wrapped and tangled around his.

“I pulled your hair,” Negan said sheepishly, and somehow the confession and the hangdog tone it was delivered in struck Rick as _extremely_ funny. He shook with helpless laughter, and Negan gave his shoulder a reproachful nip. “I didn’t ask, Rick. Fucking rude to do that shit without asking.” He nuzzled closer, kissing a wet trail from his shoulder to his neck. “You know you can tell me to knock shit off if you’re not into it, right? It doesn’t matter if I’m touching your left pinkie toe the wrong way, I don’t want you to-“

Rick twisted suddenly around in his arms and pressed his face into his lover’s neck, feeling the wet slide of salty sweat and the steady thrumming of his pulse against his lips. _I think I love you._ It sat just behind his lips, waiting to flutter out like a bird taking flight. “I know,” he said instead, voice faint and bare. “I know, baby.” He kissed the damp throat beneath his lips over and over again, trying to press the unspoken, terrifying confession into the skin like another tattoo.

—

The shower in his room was possessed, Negan had decided. It was the only explanation for the sudden jets of freezing cold water it would belch forth at random, but Negan found he didn’t really mind it when Rick was tucked beside him. Actually, the alarmed and very undignified yelp the blue-eyed man gave as the shower performed its fiendish trick made it all pretty much fucking worth it, and Negan nearly fell over with the force of his laughter.

“That ain’t funny!” Rick protested, now crowded against the far wall of the shower, eyeing the stream of water suspiciously. “Does it always do that? Jesus!”

“It most certainly fucking does. You want to complain to the proprietor?”

Rick gave a rueful laugh and allowed himself to be tugged back into the now-warm spray. “I have a feelin’ I know what she’d say.”

“Mm-hm,” Negan said into Rick’s soaked, soap-scented hair. “You gonna tell me what got you all wound up today, baby? Not that I mind you bustin’ in here and climbing me like an alley cat, don’t get me wrong…”

Rick smiled faintly up at him. “You know. Shitty day. Couldn’t find the kid that Merle beat up. He’s probably going back to county for at least thirty days. Gotta tell his little brother, and he’s…he practically lives in the woods, barely says two words at a time. I know he’s gonna take it hard.”

Negan kissed his cheek gently in acknowledgment, but he knew he couldn’t fucking leave it at that - it was hovering in the air between them in neon letters, garish and insistent. _Shane._ “That fucking sucks, baby, but is that really all of it? You tellin’ me your good buddy-“

“Negan,” Rick sighed. “Please.”

He was a slave to that word when it fell from Rick’s lips, but it had never chafed him as it did now. He knew there was something Rick wasn’t telling him - a piece he was holding back. Rick held a lot of pieces back, and he held them back stubbornly. The more Negan got to know him, the more he realized how fucking _special_ their first night together had been - the way Rick had confided in him had been utterly counter to his nature, and Negan cherished what he had been gifted that night, laying the memory up snug and safe in his heart. But that had happened because Rick allowed it to - he couldn’t be rushed with that shit. Negan understood that now. If Rick had something to say, he wouldn’t say it a minute sooner than he was ready, no matter how much Negan coaxed and wheedled.

It was pretty fucking annoying, _actually_ , and the patience it required ran counter to _his_ nature. But Rick Grimes was worth it, he reflected as he dropped a final kiss on his wet shoulder before stepping out of the shower. Rick followed him shortly, and the man had fallen into a thoughtful silence, eyes far away as he toweled off and moved to gather his clothes.

Negan watched him, frowning. _Be patient. You can be patient. Don’t be a fucking asshole, just give him a little fucking space -_ “Penny for your thoughts, Georgia,” he said softly, unable to help himself.

He expected deflection, was prepared to meet it graciously, too, so he was completely taken aback when Rick turned solemn blue eyes on him and quietly asked, “What are we doin’?”

He stared at him blankly before the meaning of the question sunk in, and then he sighed, his head sinking back as uneasiness fluttered through him. “Rick. Do we have to have this fucking conversation already?”

Rick’s head drooped, eyes falling to the floor, and Negan felt the sharp, hot edge of reproach slice into him immediately.

He leapt to his feet and crossed over to where Rick was standing, shirt clutched in his hands. Rick tried to turn his face away, but Negan caught his chin gently and tilted it up, dragging a thumb lightly along his bottom lip. “Honey, don’t. I’m sorry, I just…I fucking suck at this. What do you want me to say? Shit seems to be going fine, doesn’t it?”

“Goin’ fine,” Rick echoed faintly, eyes searching. “Yeah. But _where_ is it goin’? What are we doin’? I feel like I’m the one that doesn’t know. The day we met, I…I never done anything like that. I told you that. But you…” Rick trailed off, struggling for the words.

Negan smiled darkly, catching his meaning. “Me? I’m a whore, Rick. What’s the question?”

Rick’s eyes fell again, lids and lashes closing them away like a door swinging shut, and he lifted a hand to cover them as he stepped out of Negan’s grasp. “I don’t know. I’m sorry. I don’t know what I’m saying.”

Negan closed the distance Rick had put between them in a surging stride. He caught his wrist and pulled his hand away from his eyes, pulling him back around towards him. “Rick,” he said softly. The other man resisted him, dropping his head and angling away. Negan could feel it, just like he could that day they first met. Distress, coming off of him in waves. He gripped his bicep and jerked him around to face him fully, and Rick’s startled gaze met his. “Rick, I fucking…” he struggled, unable to give voice to the confused, hot throb of feeling in his chest. “It’s gonna be okay, baby,” he said finally. “I’m gonna…” he trailed off, lost in the other man’s searching gaze.

“Gonna what?” Rick asked in a barely audible whisper. “What do you want from me, Negan?”

He bent his head down to Rick’s lips, and the other man turned his head away again. He caught Rick’s jaw and turned his head back gently. The vivid blue eyes were pained, uncertain, and it hurt to look into them. _Say you need me,_ he had begged, and it was right there, right _there_ in the air between them, so why was it so fucking hard now? Why was it so goddamn terrifying? It was Simon’s voice that answered him from the depths of his own mind - _because of the Lucille thing, man._

“I can’t get you out of my mind,” Negan said finally. “When you’re not around, I think about you. About what you’re doing, or if you’re all right. If you’re doing that stupid bullshit thing where you don’t eat because you’re worried about something and don’t realize you’re hungry.” A faint smile touched Rick’s lips, and Negan felt warm triumph tingle through him. “Right now,” he went on softly, “I wanna be near you. That’s what I want. Is that enough?”

Rick nodded, not trusting himself to speak.

Negan’s brow furrowed as he gazed into the eyes upturned to his. He could see the wet sheen gathering at their corners in the dim, golden-orange light that reached them from the setting sun, and his heart sank in his chest. “Honey, it doesn’t have to be so hard. Just let it be easy,” he whispered, stroking the his jaw with his thumb. The words were as much for himself as for the man whose eyes held him. He dipped his head, and this time Rick didn’t turn away.


	5. Warmth of Your Doorway, Part I

Maggie practically ambushed Rick when he returned that night, eyes sparkling and smile mischievous.

“Well, if it ain’t the fine, upstanding officer of the law home after workin’ late,” she drawled, leaning against the archway to the kitchen with her arms folded.

Rick simply stared at her, eyes wide with dismay, and the teasing smile disappeared from her face.

“I’m just teasin’ you, honey. What’s that look for? Shane called looking for you, and he said y’all weren’t workin’ late and that you probably went to see your new boyfriend.” Her smile returned, tentative and appealing. “Just about fell over laughin’. You sneakin’ around like a kid past curfew, Rick?”

Rick sighed, covering his face with his hands. “Maggie, I’m sorry I lied to you -”

“I’m not,” Maggie broke in cheerfully, “I’m not sorry at all.” She chuckled, tossing her reddish-brown hair over her shoulder. “You got a boyfriend in town? I hope you bring him around sometime soon. I wanna meet the boy that gets Rick Grimes to tell a fib.”

“Maggie,” Rick protested, flushing a little as he finally answered her smile with one of his own. He remembered the missing buttons on his shirt and felt his cheeks redden. “What did Shane want?” he asked hastily to cover his embarrassment.

“Wanted to talk to you is all.”

Rick snorted faintly, bitterness rising in him. “Sure he did. Called the house to check if I was home. I didn’t get a call on the cell, so I guess that’s what he was up to.”

“What? Why would he do that? What’s goin’ on?“

Rick held up his hands. “No, no, it’s nothin’. He ran into my…the-the man I’ve been seein’, and they didn’t…get along, exactly.”

Maggie took this in with a frown. “Sounds like there’s a story. You wanna tell it, Rick?”

“There’s no story, Maggie,” Rick said quietly, rubbing at his forehead. It sounded like the lie that it was even as he said it, and he cringed. _That’s two lies I told her today,_ he thought guiltily.

“There is one,” she said finally, scuffing the toe of her boot against the floor, “and you should tell it to me. But you ain’t gonna tonight, so I’ll head on home.” She walked over and slipped her arms around Rick’s neck, leaning in to give him a quick kiss on the cheek. “Goodnight.” As she pulled away, her eyes were drawn down to the incriminating gap in his shirt. “Are you missin’…?” Her eyes flashed back up to his with barely restrained glee brimming in their bright depths, and she clasped her hands over her mouth to muffle the peal of laughter that rang from her.

Rick turned scarlet. One hand fluttered up to his shirt as if he were searching for the lost buttons, even as he he knew full well they were scattered across Negan’s bedroom floor.

“I guess you lost ‘em in the line of duty,” was Maggie’s parting shot before she giggled her way out the front door.

—

_Don’t forget our date this morning, lover boy._

Rick woke up to the text, and he chuckled sleepily as soon as he saw it. As if he was going to forget. He _had_ been a little dazed when he had left him yesterday night, though - it was the emotion of the day, pushing and pulling at him until he felt as loose at the seams as one of Judith’s put-upon stuffed animals. It had settled into a calm by the time he finally slipped into bed, and Rick savored it. Negan had been there when he needed him - that’s the thought that his tired mind held onto as he drifted off to sleep. He had been there, and his touch, his kiss, had been a balm. _Just let it be easy._

 _I can do that,_ Rick thought as he reached out a hand to rap against the door to the motel room he felt like he had only just left. _I think I can do that._

The door swung open almost immediately, and Rick leapt back, a little surprised.

“There he is,” Negan rumbled, stepping over the threshold and sweeping Rick up in a hungry kiss. Rick’s hands came up to fist in soft leather involuntarily, and his heart fluttered in his chest. Damn it, he missed him. He had barely been apart from him for more than twelve hours, and he still _missed_ him.

“Well, well, well,” came a familiar smoke-roughened voice, “so that’s who was doin’ all that screamin’ yesterday. Hell, Officer. Didn’t have you pegged for a _screamer_.”

Rick turned his head, startled, and found the inn’s old caretaker shuffling up to them. She was wheeling her oxygen tank behind her with blessedly no lit cigarette in sight. “Molly,” he said, feeling his cheeks heat up. He tried to step away from Negan’s embrace, but the other man held him stubbornly, shooting him a smirk.

“You havin’ a little listen, Miss Molly? Hell. I didn’t peg _you_ for a peepin’ Tina.”

She gave a throaty cackle. “It ain’t peepin’ unless you _look_ , boy. Anyway, I heard you down in my damn office across the way - what were you doin’? Tryin’ to kill that boy? Don’t kill ‘im. He’s the only cop I got any use for.”

As mortified as Rick was, he found the older woman's words touching, and he smiled faintly at her. “That’s real nice, Molly.”

She grunted, grinning as she moved past them. “I’m a real nice lady, officer. Ask anyone. Well, if you’re here, I guess I’ll get some goddamn ear plugs.”

“No, we’re…we’re goin’ somewhere,” Rick called weakly at her retreating back, conscious of wanting to sink straight into the splintered old wooden boards beneath their feet.

“Save the ear plugs for later, baby doll,” Negan added cheerfully. He turned his head to Rick’s and met his sheepish look with an unrepentant grin, darting in to steal a kiss. “Aren’t you just the town sweetheart,” he murmured as he pulled back, tugging Rick closer against his chest.

“What do you mean?” Rick asked, sliding one of his hands into Negan’s open jacket and running his fingers over his shoulder.

“What do I mean? Everyone I talk to fucking adores you, Rick. Dale’s practically ready to elect you mayor. And you’re the only cop Molly’s got any use for,” he added with a chuckle.

Rick shook his head. “Dale’s a friend,” he said, smiling. “We been friends for a long time, that’s all,”

Negan scoffed and rolled his eyes, leaning in to press a kiss to the exposed skin above Rick’s collar. “That’s exactly it, baby,” he murmured into the soft skin beneath his lips, “that’s what makes you the sweetheart. You don’t even fucking know it.” He kissed a swift, teasing trail up his neck and over his jaw, stopping at the crest of his cheekbone. “You finally takin’ me out on a real date, huh?”

“Yeah,” Rick replied, smiling fondly up at him. He reached up and ran his fingers through the dark hair at his temple. “That’s right. Come on. We’re goin’ for a ride in my hotrod.”

Negan chuckled as they walked over to the old Ford. “Thing’s still running! Goddamn, I’m good at what I do.”

“You are,” Rick agreed, shooting him a sly look through his lashes and letting the insinuation flow thick and sweet through his slow drawl. Negan responded immediately, getting a hand under his shirt and pressed flat against the warm skin of his back, but Rick slipped away with a smile. “Uh-uh. We won’t make it to breakfast if you start that up now.”

Negan groaned but went around to other side of the car obediently. “You’re a fucking tease, Rick. Molly went to get her earplugs and everything. We could just step back inside -“

“Negan,” Rick scolded lightly, grinning as he started the car.

“I guess you can make it up to me later, then,” Negan said with the air of someone extending a great generosity, and Rick reached over and squeezed his thigh affectionately before shifting the car into gear. Negan stretched a long arm along the back of Rick’s seat, stroking his fingers through his curls occasionally.

Rick shivered pleasantly at the gentle touch. “Everything okay over at the garage?” he asked.

“Shit, I guess so - it’s slow-ass work starting shit from the ground up. Jim’s got the space, but that’s about it - he needs people to work for him, needs the books set up, needs to fucking advertise, needs to file all these fucking papers. Business license, all that shit. It’s an ass-load of paperwork, lemme fucking tell you.”

 _Good,_ Rick thought childishly. He wanted it to be difficult, to go slowly. He wanted Negan here for a long, long time. _All to myself,_ he thought, and his own selfishness embarrassed him a little. “Sorry,” he said aloud as if to make up for the thoughts in his head, “it does sound like a lot of work. I’ll help, if there’s anything you think I can do.”

“Honey, I like you _helping_ just the way you are,” Negan said with a downright filthy chuckle, and Rick felt his cheeks burn as he fought an answering grin. “Everything going okay with you, baby?” Negan asked softly after a moment. “Kids? Job? Cousin Maggie?”

Rick smiled. “Cousin Maggie was watchin’ the kids last night. She saw what you did to my shirt, Negan,” he added reproachfully.

Negan snickered. “Cousin Maggie,” he drawled, grinning. “Goddamn, I owe cousin Maggie some gratitude. How many times have I been able to get you all to myself for a nice, long fuck because she was baby-sittin’? I should buy that girl a fruit basket.”

“Couldn’t hurt,” Rick agreed wryly. “I should buy her one, too. Judith has been a firecracker lately. You turn your back for a second, and she’s halfway across the room, reachin’ for something you would swear she could never get to. Nearly got a paper towel soaked with soap in her mouth this mornin’. How she got it down off the damn counter, I have no idea.”

Negan chuckled, running a hand over his mouth. “Shit, Rick. It’s a law of the universe - babies get into whatever shit you don’t want them to get into. My buddy’s girl, Sherry, she needed me to watch her niece for a few hours. She had one of those little baby jails - play pen, whatever. Well, this kid broke the fuck out of Alcatraz. I walk into the kitchen, walk back out - she’s gone. I tear the house up lookin’ for her, and I find her in my bedroom, crawling under the bed where I keep a baseball bat with barbed-fucking-wire on the business end. Kid was about to put the damn thing in her mouth. I got it away from her just in time, and can you fucking believe it - kid starts wailing like I stole her ice cream cone. Jesus, it took ten years off my fucking life, seeing that kid grinning and holding that shit. Sherry would’ve skinned me alive and made a damn rug.”

“Why the hell would you put barbed wire on a baseball bat?” Rick demanded incredulously.

Negan laughed, stretching his long legs. “Home defense system. Hell, it was Lucille’s idea. That girl never did anything half-way.“ Negan broke off suddenly, startling in his seat.

And there it was, finally spoken aloud - the name that Rick’s eyes had traced countless times when his lover was bare and on him, the sweat beaded on his skin looking like tear drops hanging off the delicate lettering. The question was in his mouth - _who was Lucille, Negan?_ \- but it stuck uneasily there, tasting like guilt. He knew who Lucille was, after all. He had gotten a glimpse he wasn’t meant to have in the form of an unguarded word from Bud on that night in Atlanta.

“Where are we going for breakfast, anyway, baby?” Negan’s expression had settled back into the faint smirk he almost always wore, eyes warm and mischievous, and just like that the moment vanished into the air.

“Uh, diner I like. They make real good milkshakes,” Rick said, unable to help his subdued tone.

Negan brushed his fingers through the hair at his nape affectionately. “Good. Fucking love a good milkshake.”

Rick pointed out a few landmarks as they drove, trying to shake the solemnity that had crept over him. It didn’t take long; Negan’s good humor was infectious, although Rick wondered how much of it was sincere. He had looked shocked in the few moments after Lucille’s name left his lips, but it had faded so quickly, replaced by his easy mirth. Rick let himself follow Negan’s lead, falling back into a light-hearted back and forth as they made their way to the diner.

They got their milkshakes to go after they ate breakfast, and Rick drove them out to one of this favorite parks. They climbed onto the hood of the car and curled into each other, sipping the cold shakes in the hazy heat of the day.

“I got to tell you, Rick,” Negan said squeezing him against his chest with an arm around his shoulders, “this fucking small town life is growing on me.”

Rick’s heart fluttered in his chest at the words, and he instantly scolded himself. “Yeah?” he asked mildly. _Don’t read into it, it doesn’t mean…_

“Mm-hm. Fucking pretty out here. Quiet. Just sit on the back porch drinking sweet tea all day, huh? Not fucking bad.”

Rick grinned around a straw. “Not _all_ day. Gotta work.” He frowned suddenly. “I’m not looking forward to tomorrow,” he confessed softly. “Gotta tell Daryl Dixon that I collared his big brother. _If_ I can find ‘im.”

Negan pressed a kiss to Rick’s temple. His lips were cold from the milkshake, and Rick shivered, smiling faintly. “You care, don’t you? You really care about these people.”

Rick glanced up at him in surprise. He flushed a little under the affectionate warmth of Negan’s gaze. “Of course. They’re…they’re my neighbors, you know? Small town, like you said. We try to look after each other.”

Negan bent his head and kissed his lips, and Rick melted into it, giving a pleased hum. “Town sweetheart,” Negan murmured against his mouth, “like I said. You gonna let me come down to the station tomorrow, town sweetheart? Take you to lunch?”

“Take me to lunch, huh?” Rick whispered. He could feel Negan’s arousal swelling, pressing against his thigh, and he nudged him playfully. “That where you want to take me?”

Negan tossed his head back and chuckled, eyes glinting appreciatively. “Okay, you caught me. I want to fuck you on your lunch break. Is that a crime, officer?”

“Depends where we do it,” Rick returned slyly.

Negan rocked his head back and gave Rick a wide-eyed look of false surprise. “You know what? I’m beginning to think that wholesome act you’ve got is just that, baby - a fucking act.”

“Guess you’ll find out tomorrow,” Rick murmured, cheeks hot. Negan laughed and nosed into Rick’s neck, pressing soft, nibbling kisses into the warm skin there. Rick let his eyes drift shut. Wrapped in his lover’s arms, with the sweet taste of ice cream in his mouth, and surrounded by the soft, sweet symphony of birds, he realized that he was happy. Happy in an easy, natural way; happy in that very moment, suspended in time and unsullied for once by the worries that bubbled and roiled endlessly in the depths of his heart. He basked in it, setting his cup aside to twine his fingers into Negan’s dark hair. “Baby,” he began, his voice nothing more than breath in the sultry air.

Negan lifted his head to gaze down at him. “Hm?”

Rick swallowed, suddenly a little afraid of what he might say. “Glad you’re here,” he said finally, tugging him back down and meeting his lips, still cool and faintly sweet.

—

Rick had meant it when he told Negan that he was dreading the next day because of having to break the bad news to Daryl Dixon, but he had left out a piece of the truth. He wasn’t looking forward to the long ride out to Daryl’s trailer with Shane simmering in the driver’s seat next to him, either. He wasn’t a man who minded silence, but there was something aggressive about Shane’s brand of petulant, angry silence that always raised his hackles. It was better than the alternative, though; the last thing Rick wanted was a reprise of what had happened after the bar. _He needs time,_ Rick thought, glancing at him out of the corners of his eyes. _That’s all. Just needs some time._

His phone began to buzz insistently in his pocket just as they drew closer to the Dixon trailer, and he pulled it out, glancing down at the screen. He frowned at the number flashing there. He didn’t recognize it, but it was familiar all the same. _Where have I -_

“Your Hell’s Angel checkin’ up on you?” Shane voice cut coldly through his thoughts.

Rick dropped the phone back in his pocket, lips tightening. “No. It ain’t Negan.”

“The hell kind of a name is ‘Negan,’ anyway?” Shane muttered.

“His mama made it up. Liked how it sounded.”

“His _mama_ ,” Shane echoed, and somehow he made the word sound like a curse.

Rick rubbed his jaw, fighting the rising tide of anger in him.

Shane shot him a look. “What? I didn’t say nothin’.”

“ _Shane_ ,” he sighed. “Are you really gonna be like this? You gonna be ugly with me now? After every -“

“I didn’t say _nothin’_ ,” he insisted stubbornly, setting his jaw. “Shit, Rick. You wanna fuck bikers, fuck bikers. You’re grown. Do whatever the hell you want.”

“I’m not fuckin’ _bikers_ ,” Rick snapped, “I’m fuckin’ one biker. One. The only person I’ve been with since Lori died.”

“Not the only person,” Shane retorted.

The silence that settled in was nothing less than the breathless aftermath of a bomb exploding.

“Rick,” Shane began in a subdued, I-went-too-far tone.

Rick was painfully familiar with that tone. Shane had used it on him countless times in the wake of some ugliness between them. Had used it the one other time he had ever acknowledged the night of the funeral - _you know I didn’t mean to do you like that before. I was out of my head, man._ “We’re not gonna talk about this now,” Rick said, and he couldn’t understand why his voice was a hoarse whisper.

“Rick,” he tried again, voice softening further, growing pleading.

“No,” he grunted. “I mean it, Shane. No.” Rick leaned his head against the cool window, breathing evenly and trying to keep the pain and anger that threatened to spill out of him in an ugly, rotten flood at bay. _Not now. Not fucking now, Grimes._ The squad car began to bounce and shake as they made the turn onto the rocky dirt road that led to the Dixon’s out-of-the-way homestead. Rick’s heart sank as he made out a familiar figure crouched in front of the trailer, holding a dirty blade in one hand and what looked to be a half-skinned squirrel in the other. He realized that he had been hoping the man was out on one of his hunting trips. From the looks of it, he had just returned.

Daryl raised his hand in a gruff salute as Rick stepped out of the squad car and made his way over to him. He shoved the knife deep into the ground and gathered up the pile of small carcasses. “Come on in,” he grunted, shouldering the door to the small trailer open and disappearing inside. “Caught some squirrels,” Daryl said in unnecessary exposition as he dumped an armful onto a dirty folding table.

Rick blinked at him, feeling his heart sink a little lower. This was the most talkative Daryl Dixon had ever been with him. _Friendly,_ he realized sadly. _He’s bein’ friendly._ “Yeah, I see that. You’re real good with that crossbow, huh?”

The man shrugged, but he shot a shyly pleased look up at Rick from beneath a curtain of lank blonde hair.

 _Oh, fuck fuck fucking fuck,_ Rick thought miserably, and channeling Negan a little in that way gave him the strength to say: “We, uh…we came to ask a few questions about Merle, Daryl.”

“You seen ‘im? We were gonna go back out together,” Daryl asked, looking suddenly younger in his eagerness. “He promised. We ain’t been huntin’ together since the season started.”

Rick’s heart finished its descent down his chest and came to rest somewhere in the pit of his belly. “Daryl,” he said slowly, “I’m sorry. Merle got in a fight in town the other day. He was high when we picked him up. That’s two parole violations. We had to take him in. I gotta ask - has he been cookin’ again?”

Daryl’s face crumpled, and for an awful moment, Rick thought the man was going to burst into tears. “ _Hell,_ no,” he howled suddenly. He threw his arm out wildly, gesturing towards the trailer, knocking into an overhanging lamp as he did so. It swung precariously, the light stuttering. “Does it look like someone’s been cookin’ in here?!”

 _Doesn’t mean he ain’t doin’ it somewhere else,_ Rick thought wearily. “Is he sellin’?”

Daryl’s arm flashed out so fast that Rick wasn’t sure what was happening until a small weight struck him full in the chest. He stared at the small grey-and-pink glistening heap on the floor, dumbstruck. _He threw a squirrel at me. He hit me with a goddamn squirrel._

“What the _fuck_ , Dixon,” Shane snapped beside him, and Rick heard the snap of a holster. “Assaulting a fucking officer now? You wanna go bunk with your shit-for-brains brother?”

“Shane,” he said sharply, holding out an arm.

“You ain’t even givin’ him a chance,” Daryl shouted, face flushed red with misery and rage. “He just got out! He just got out, an’ you -“

“He got out because of fucking _Rick_ , because he testified at the parole hearing, you stupid pile of sh-“

“Shane,” Rick yelled, head throbbing. He lifted a hand to his forehead. “Daryl,” he said evenly, “he got a chance. He’s gettin’ one. He’s the one who decides what happens with it. Givin’ someone a chance ain’t about lookin’ the other way when they screw up. I think you know that.”

Daryl’s entire body seemed to droop at that, as limp as the little pile of furry, twisted limbs at Rick’s feet. “He told me all that bullshit was behind ‘im,” Daryl muttered, barely audible. “I never saw nothin’ different. If he’s…if he’s back in it, he’s hidin’ it good.”

“Well, we don’t have all the facts yet,” Rick said quietly. “Maybe it…maybe it ain’t what it looks like.” He heard Shane give a faint sigh behind him.

“Sorry,” the other man croaked, head hanging like a whipped dog. “Shouldna thrown it.”

Rick smiled weakly. “S’all right. No permanent damage. Daryl…we’re gonna figure out what’s goin’ on. And we’re gonna be fair. I promise. But with the violations, Merle’s probably goin’ back on the inside to finish out the original sentence. And if it turns out there’s somethin’ else here, there’s gonna be new charges. I just…want you to be prepared for this to…” _To go tits up,_ Negan’s voice unhelpfully supplied in the back of his mind. “To end up different than how we were hopin’ it would when he got out,” Rick finished.

There was a heavy silence. “You said he was high,” Daryl said finally. “Was it crystal?”

“Yeah,” Rick said softly. “It was.”

“Man, crystal’s a _bitch_ ,” Daryl whispered, and his voice was thick with the tears he was struggling to holding back.

“I’m sorry, Daryl. I really am.” It felt inadequate, but it was all Rick could offer. He ducked his head and turned to leave.

“I wanted to tell ya,” the other man began gruffly, and Rick turned back to face him. Daryl’s eyes were still trained on the floor. His long, lank hair fell into his face and hiding his eyes.

“Tell me what?”

“That I’m sorry. ‘Bout what happened to you an’ your kid. Fucked up, man.” He lifted his head, and his red-rimmed eyes were open and vulnerable in a way Rick had never seen on him before.

Rick licked his lips, feeling his heart speed up in his chest and sweat break out clammily over his skin the way it always did when he was reminded of that day. “Thank you, Daryl,” he said softly. “That’s…thank you.”

The other man nodded jerkily, dropping his head again and letting his curtain of hair swing shut over his eyes. “Fucked up,” he mumbled again.

Rick swallowed thickly. “Yeah,” he said, “it was.”

Shane was standing in the doorway of the trailer with his back to Rick. His white-knuckled hand was clenched around the frame. His shoulders were hunched, tense.

“Come on, Shane,” Rick said quietly, and the other man shuffled down the steps and loped out to the car.

The silence between them during the drive back was thick and mournful.

“Rick,” Shane tried once, but Rick cut him off.

“Don’t,” he said dully. “Just…I don’t wanna talk.”

For once, Shane listened to him.

—

Rick buried himself in paperwork for the remainder of the morning. The emotions of the day roiled in him like a sour stew, and he fought to keep it all at arm’s length. He was counting the minutes to when he could leave the station and clear his head, and he jumped up at 11:59 exactly to stride out into the parking lot. He shaded his eyes, scanning the lot for Negan, and he spotted the back end of a motorcycle peeking out from behind a large van at the edge of the lot. Rick was down the lot and around the van in an instant, and he froze when he caught sight of him.

It was as if he were seeing him for the first time all over again. He was heart-stoppingly handsome as he leaned against his bike in the noonday sun, and his eyes seared Rick where he stood. He winked at him, his roguish smirk spreading slowly across his face. He had smirked at him like that all those months ago in the garage, too, but Rick had been too tired and distressed to understand at first. He understood _now_ , though, just what that alluring curl of his lips said without words: _mine_. Rick all but fell into his arms, pressing his cheek against his hard, leather-clad shoulder. His familiar scent surrounded him, and Rick sighed, feeling some of the tension leave his body.

“Ooh, honey,” Negan chuckled appreciatively, “happy to see me?” He put a hand on the small of Rick’s back, and the other man shivered, melting further against him.

“Mm-hm.” It was all Rick trusted himself to say.

Negan stiffened, and then gentle fingers found Rick’s jaw, tilting his head up to meet Negan’s questioning eyes. “What happened, baby?”

Rick shook his head. “Nothin’. You know. I had to break that bad news to Daryl about his brother. He took it real hard. Uh…he threw a squirrel at me. Dead one,” he clarified.

Negan’s bewildered expression hardened into a sharp frown, and Rick grinned up at him sheepishly. “He…what the fuck? Threw shit at you? Threw…a dead squirrel?” Negan looked like he was trying to hang onto his anger, but he gave in to a sudden fit of laughter. “What the _fuck_. That’s fucking craziest redneck shit I’ve ever heard.” He rubbed a hand up Rick’s spine. “You fucking okay? You’re not hurt? Fuck, I don’t know, does it hurt to get hit by a squirrel?”

“Not really,” Rick chuckled, turning his face back into Negan’s shoulder. “More of a surprise than anything.”

“Well, shit. Assault with a furry weapon. There’s one for the blotter, I guess.”

Rick lifted his head, smiling, and was about to reply when he caught sight of a mirrored storefront over Negan’s shoulder. He could see Shane lingering in the front of the station, watching them. Watching him, in Negan’s arms. “Let’s go,” he said, tilting his head back to gaze into Negan’s eyes. “I…I only got an hour, and I wanna spend it all with you.”

The smile that spread across Negan’s face was unguardedly pleased. He lifted his arm and placed a bike helmet on Rick’s head. “Hold on tight, sweetheart.”

Rick hadn’t been on a motorcycle since he was a teenager; he and Shane had made a few clumsy attempts at joyriding that they were lucky to have escaped from in one piece. Rick found he vastly preferred being a passenger, nestled snugly against Negan's back with his arm curled tightly around his waist. He relaxed and enjoyed sailing down the road as the wind rushed coolly over him. He had wanted to go straight to some private spot and wrap himself around his lover's body to obliterate the unhappy thoughts tormenting him, but Negan insisted on seeing him fed. They ate burgers in the lot of a roadside stand, sitting curled against each other at the curb despite the warmth of the day.

“Jim keeps his business papers in a shoebox, Rick - a fucking shoebox. I ask him why the fuck he would do that, you know what he said? 'They was a good pair of boots.’”

Rick laughed, crumpling the empty wrapping from his burger in his hand. “At least he’s got ‘em all in one spot, I guess.”

“Sure. He’s got half of what he needs, but they’re all in one spot. Ready to go, honey?”

“Go and do what?” Rick asked disingenuously, shooting him a sly look from the corners of his eyes. He knew exactly what they were going to go and do; he had been aching for it the minute Negan folded him into his arms.

“To have dessert,” Negan said with a straight face as he helped Rick to his feet.

A short time later, Rick was surprised to see that they were pulling up to Dale’s bar. “I can’t drink, Negan, I’m on break, but I’m still -“

“Not here to drink, baby,” Negan laughed, slinging an arm around his shoulders as they walked up to the door. They walked right by the bar, Negan lifting his hand in a lazy salute to Dale as they passed, and Rick was bewildered as Negan led him down a narrow hallway.

“What…” Rick trailed off as Negan produced a key from his pocket and opened the door at the far end of the hallway, stepping back with a flourish.

“After you, baby doll. Welcome to our hideaway.”

Rick laughed as he crossed the threshold in the storeroom. It was overflowing with liquor boxes and lit dimly from an overhead bulb. “Are you serious, Negan? How did you convince Dale to give you the key? Does he even know what you wanna do in here?”

“Oh, he knows. I painted him a picture - with words. It was fucking poetic.” Negan slid his arms around Rick’s waist and kissed the back of his head, grinning.

“Negan,” Rick groaned, feeling his face get hot, “what the hell did you say to him?”

Negan chuckled. “Aw, baby, relax. I told him that you were working too goddamned hard, and that you needed a little -“ Negan’s hand slid over his belly and wandered down to clasp between his legs. “- a little R&R, you know? A little private time. Your buddy Dale has your fucking back, sweetheart. Storeroom was _his_ idea.”

Rick chuckled ruefully at the thought of Dale conspiring to get him laid. It was just like him to do it, too - meddling was in his nature. Lips moved against his neck, and Rick’s eyes drifted shut as Negan continued to palm him gently through his clothes.

“What do you say, baby?” he breathed in his ear. “Come on. You had a hard day. Let me work out the kinks a little before you get back to it.”

Rick nodded shyly, breath hitching in his chest, and he felt Negan’s sharp grin.

He had him braced against the wall in what felt like seconds later, pounding into him almost ferociously as Rick whimpered into his leather-clad shoulder. It was all Rick could do to clench his thighs around his waist and _hang on_. He had only barely been able to choke back a cry when he came, and he had shaken like a leaf in Negan’s arms afterwards as the other man murmured hotly in his ear - _so good, baby, you’re so fucking good so hot so tight so fucking beautiful_. He was dazedly pliant as Negan cleaned him up and helped him back into his clothes, and he walked out of the bar feeling like he had been pulled apart and put back together haphazardly.

“Same time tomorrow?” Negan murmured when he dropped him back off at the station.

Rick tilted his head up to kiss him hungrily, hips still throbbing with what they had just done. “God, you’re trouble,” he sighed, smiling against his mouth. He was only half a step away when Negan’s voice halted him.

“I can tell when you’re upset about somethin’ that you don’t want to tell me about, Rick. You get this _look_.”

Rick turned slowly to face him. “Negan…”

“It ain’t about squirrels or angry rednecks, Rick. I don’t know why you won’t tell me the truth.” Negan looked away as he said it, and Rick’s throat tightened with dismay at the man’s uncharacteristically subdued tone.

“Honey, it’s just…I don’t wanna…” Rick faltered, moving back towards Negan with halting steps. He hesitated for just a moment before pressing close to his chest, eyes imploring. This was exactly the kind of thing that had gotten him into trouble with Lori on more than one occasion, and Rick couldn’t bear the way Negan wasn’t meeting his eyes. It was Lori’s voice that he heard in his head now, urging him, holding that familiar affectionate exasperation - _speak, Rick_. “It’s just that Shane’s been hard to be around ever since-“

Negan’s eyes snapped to his, and his face twisted into a mask of fury unlike anything that Rick had never seen on him before. He jerked his head and stared down the parking lot, towards the large double doors at the front of the station, with the watchful intensity of a beast of prey. “I fucking knew it,” he hissed.

Rick’s heart was slamming against his ribs in a panicked tattoo. He reached up and trapped Negan’s face between his hands, turning it back to his. “If you care about me at all, you won’t do what you’re thinkin’ about doin’,” he said urgently.

Negan snorted a harsh breath through his nostrils, sounding like an angry bull, but his eyes softened as they rested on Rick’s. “That son of a bitch,” he said quietly. “I fucking knew it. Lemme guess. He’s jealous? He wants you on his dick instead of mine?”

Rick hung his head, cheeks reddening in distress. Negan was so goddamned perceptive; he shouldn’t be surprised at how quickly he saw right down to the heart of it, but it didn’t stop him from feeling humiliation at the exposure.

Negan melted slowly against him with a long sigh, arms slipping and twining around him. He drew Rick’s head to his chest and dipped down, bringing his lips close. “Honey, don’t. Don’t look so fucking miserable. Come on.” He rubbed a warm circle into the small of Rick’s back.

Suddenly, Rick needed to get the truth out. All of it - every last shameful piece. “After it happened, he wanted to…be together. But n-not…exclusive.” Rick gave an unsteady, embarrassed laugh. “He said he wasn’t ready. He just wanted to, uh…well, you know. And I would have given him a chance if it weren’t for that. But I wasn’t gonna…gonna just be a-a…” Words failed him completely, and he shut his eyes. He could feel the steady beat of Negan’s heart against his cheek. “I have to get back to work,” he whispered. The last thing he wanted to do was leave the comforting circle of Negan’s arms.

Lips pressed gently against his forehead. “I’m gonna take your lead on this, Rick,” he whispered, the words ghosting against his skin. “Whatever you want me to do. What _I_ want to do is give him a brand new face -“

“Negan,” Rick protested faintly.

“- but it’s not about what I want,” Negan finished wryly. “Okay? I get it, baby.”

Rick looked up at him, blue eyes searching. After a moment, he angled his head up invitingly, and Negan bent to close the distance and press a soft kiss to his waiting lips. “Thank you,” Rick said with soft sincerity.

Negan gave him a rueful smile. “Don’t thank me for not being an asshole, honey. I’m serious,” he insisted at Rick’s small chuckle. “I’ve got your fucking back. You know that, don’t you?”

Rick nodded, throat suddenly too tight to speak.

Negan’s hand slid down his back to give his ass a firm squeeze, his smile growing sly. “I love having your back, Rick.”

He laughed, and he could feel some of the heaviness in his heart ease. “Shut up, Negan.” He kissed him again.

—

It was dark when he finally left the station. The night air was still and hot, and he felt his uniform stick to him unpleasantly as he made his way to the car. He was just putting his key in the car door, thinking about how he’d have to make time for at least one load of laundry before he went to bed, when a shadow loomed behind him, reflecting in the car window. Shane. He spun, his heart slamming hard against his chest as adrenaline licked through him like a spreading fire.

He was standing several feet away, eyes wet and red in the streetlights. “Rick, I’m sorry. I’m sorry. You’re all I got left, man.” His arms hung limply at his sides, and Rick had never seen him look less like a threat.

“Bein’ sorry ain’t enough,” he said softly, heart still knocking against his ribs. “You have to act sorry, Shane. I’m not…I’m not gonna say it’s all right when it ain’t. Maybe it’s my fault for pretendin’ that everything was fine after, but -“

“It ain’t your fault, Rick,” Shane said dejectedly, eyes on the ground. “None of it is. Not that, and not what happened at the school. It’s mine.”

Rick sagged against the car, suddenly exhausted. “Shane -“

“You should head home, man,” Shane muttered, turning to shuffle away. “Long ass day.”

Rick watched him retreat, shoulders slumped and steps slow. He got into his car with a sigh - _long ass day._ He drove home lost in his own thoughts, and he nearly hit the roof of the car in shock when his phone rang suddenly in his pocket just as he pulled into his driveway.

Dread pooled in his stomach as the phone buzzed and trilled. A thought bubbled up to the surface of his mind, confused but menacing - _it’s that number._ Why should he be afraid of that number? _Telemarketer,_ he thought, pulling his phone out of his pocket, _that’s all, I’ll answer it right now and -_

It was Negan.

He tapped it quickly and brought the phone to his ear in relief. “Hi, baby,” he said softly in greeting.

“I love it when you call me ‘baby,’ baby,” Negan purred on the other end of the line, and Rick felt a warm shiver of delight pass through him. “You home in one piece? No more dodging the fucking wildlife?”

“No more of that,” Rick laughed, smiling. “What about you? Find any possums in your room tonight?”

“Don’t be jealous, darlin’, I gotta keep warm _somehow_ when you’re not around.”

Rick laughed again, covering his face with his hand, and that fear returned to him - the fear of what might tumble out of his mouth. He pressed a hand over it, heart swelling in his chest.

“You’re all right, aren’t you, baby? Tell me you’re okay.” His tone was soft and earnest, and Rick pressed his palm harder against his lips for a minute as if he were forcing something back.

“I’m all right. Thanks to you.” _I think I love you._ “You’re good to me, baby. Real good to me.” That was dangerous, that was little too close to it - _I think I…_

“Aw, honey,” he murmured, voice a low, sweet rumble. “You make it so fucking easy.”

—

He could hear the sweet, soft singing the moment he opened the front door, and he felt an affectionate smile immediately warm his face. Beth was sitting at the kitchen table, Judith wrapped up in her arms as she sang her a lullaby. She let the melody fade softly, the last few notes lingering hauntingly in the air as she beamed up at Rick as he stood in the archway. Rick walked on light feet so as not to wake the sleeping girl, and he bent and kissed Beth’s tousled blonde hair before gently lifting Judith from her arms. “Hi, honey, “ he whispered. “How was the baby?”

“Judy’s an angel,” Beth whispered back, flashing her big, sweet smile up at Rick. “She goes down for her naps so easy. I graded a whole stack of tests today.” She waved her hand towards the kitchen table, where a few neat stacks of paper sat.

Rick walked softly over to the living room and placed Judith gently in her carrier. She gave a sleepy squeak as he tucked her little arms in that made his heart swell in his chest. “Job’s still goin’ good, then?” he asked quietly as he turned back towards the kitchen.

“Oh, yeah,” Beth chirped, stretching slightly. “I _love_ teachin’ music. It’s a little weird sometimes, though, bein’ there as a teacher - I feel like I just graduated _yesterday_.”

“I feel like you just graduated yesterday, too,” Rick replied with a fond smile. “Where’s Carl at?”

“Locked up in his room on the phone with Sophia,” Beth laughed. “Just about all day. That’s the way they are in school, too - joined at the hip. It’s cute. Speaking of cute,” she went on, shooting him a mischievous look from beneath her long lashes, “Sasha told me you were ridin’ around on the back of a motorcycle with some _babe_.” She grinned up at Rick expectantly.

He gave an embarrassed chuckle, rubbing at his jaw. “Well, Sasha was right.”

Beth bounced a little in her seat, looking suddenly far younger than her years - like someone who had just graduated high school yesterday. “Ooh, I’m gonna tell _Maggie!_ She’s been on to you, Rick! What’s his name?”

“Negan,” Rick said, looking down and suddenly feeling absurdly shy in front of this girl he had known nearly all his life.

“Negan? _That’s_ a funny name,” Beth replied, still radiating excitement. “But I got a girl in my class named Super Nova, like with the two words, so - when are we gonna meet him, Rick? I wanna ride on the motorcycle!”

“Your daddy will kill me, Beth, and probably him, too,” Rick groaned, laughing. Beth’s joy was infectious, and why shouldn’t it be? He was happy, too; he was happy in that walking-on-air way he thought he never could be again. But it was all so goddamn _fragile_ ; he was beset with the uncertainty of it all, and it could all be summed up in what Beth had said - _when are we gonna meet him, Rick?_

He didn’t know the answer to that question. He didn’t know if Negan even wanted to meet them - meet his children, meet his extended family. He was scared that he didn’t, and he was more scared to ask and find out for certain.

Beth seemed to sense the change in his mood, because she walked up to him and put a hesitant hand on his arm. “Is Mr. Motorcycle good to you, Rick?” she asked softly, her eyes solemn and doe-like in her lovely face.

Rick covered the hand with his, smiling at her with as much warm reassurance as he could muster as his own worries gurgled uneasily in his gut. “Yeah. He’s real good to me. I think I -“ he broke off, shocked. Those little words had been trying to flit past his lips all day, and this time they had nearly made it. “I think I’ll…I’ll…try and invite him to dinner with you girls one of these nights. How about that?”

Beth beamed. “Good. Dinner and a ride on the motorcycle. Deal?”

“Deal,” Rick answered softly, and he tried to ignore the nervous fluttering of his heart.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *weakly, from beneath a pile of Responsibilities* I'm aliiiiiiive! This chapter and the next one were originally one, but I split them up because I felt like it was getting too unwieldy. I'm hoping to get the next one finished up soon. I know it's been a long wait between updates, and I'm bummed about that - I've just been slammed this year. I'm hoping the next chapter won't take nearly as long. Peace, y'all.


	6. Warmth of Your Doorway, Part II

The week that passed was a happy one, considering its tumultuous start. Shane was quiet and downright _respectful_ , and Rick let himself believe that he had actually heard what Rick told him and had taken it to heart. Negan rode him out on the back of his bike during lunch, and Rick couldn’t remember the last time he felt as carefree as he did gliding down familiar roads, clinging to his lover’s waist. Lori would have teased him endlessly for it, Rick was sure. He had always been so cautious, and aside from a few joyrides in his teenage years, he had stayed away from motorcycles. He was growing daring under Negan’s influence, ever since that first act of boldness that brought them together.

It was boldness that led him to suggest that they take a drive that weekend to a spot that had been special to him and Lori - a spot where he never failed to feel her presence. He couldn’t fully understand the instinct at first, and he didn’t fully understand it until they were halfway there.

He wanted her blessing. He had been sitting on the back of Negan’s motorcycle all week wondering what words she would use to tease him with if she could see, and suddenly he needed to _know_ , needed to _feel_ the truth - what would she say? What would she think? Would she be happy? He wanted to bring Negan to the place he had always felt her, long after she was gone, like he was presenting him to her ghost. Not that he told him that - every time he tried, his tongue grew thick and clumsy in his mouth.

They were drawing closer to their destination, and trees crowded in on the suddenly narrow roads. The heavy greenery was almost oppressive, reaching out thick and leaf-choked branches towards them.

Negan looked over at him from the passenger’s seat, amused. “The hell are you taking me?”

“Just…somewhere I like to be sometimes,” Rick replied with a soft smile.

“Huh,” Negan grunted, settling back into his seat. “This shit is how horror movies start, baby. Next thing, we got redneck cannibals chasing us through the woods. Maybe some fucking zombies. Yeah, I think it would be zombies - this is some _Evil Dead_ shit right here.”

“Scared?” Rick asked, a mischievous note in his voice.

Negan laughed and slid a hand over Rick’s denim-clad thigh. “Nah, honey. Not with my own personal _deputy_ to fucking protect me.”

Rick could feel the flush sitting on his face begin to creep down his neck. “Mm-hm,” he mumbled shyly as Negan’s warm hand lay heavy on his thigh. He turned the car slowly into a dusty turn-off, nosing towards the crest of a grassy slope. Just beyond the gently downward trailing edge, the blue expanse of a lake was visible. The setting sun shimmered on the surface, turning its crests a molten gold. Rick twisted the key in the ignition, and the car shivered and stilled.

Negan whistled, winding an arm around Rick’s neck. “Ain’t that pretty,” he mused, pulling Rick against him. He dropped a kiss into his chestnut curls. “This where you take all your dates, darlin’?”

Rick snorted, head lolling against Negan’s shoulder. “What dates?” He felt Negan turn his head to look down at him.

“Weren’t they linin’ up for you, blue eyes?”

“What? No. Why would they?”

“‘Cause you’re sexy, Georgia. And you’re sweet, until someone rubs you the wrong way, and then you bite like a fucking rottweiler. And you take care of people, even jack-offs who don’t fucking deserve it.” Negan’s hand smoothed down the side of his throat, and Rick shivered, eyes still downturned and locked on Negan’s long legs disappearing under the dash. “And - I can’t emphasize this enough - fucking you?” Negan whistled high and long, and Rick swore he could feel his smirk radiating down at him like something hot. “It’s a goddamn religious experience.”

“That started out real nice and got kind of off-track at the end,” Rick muttered, turning his face further into Negan’s chest. He could feel the laughter rumble through the other man, and he settled against his shoulder with a sigh, feeling a contented calm settle over him once again. In that calm, he finally found the words he had been trying to say all morning. “We used to come here - Lori an’ me. She…she loved this spot. I can feel her when I’m here, and I…I just wanted…I don’t know. I just wanted you to come here. I know it sounds crazy, but it’s like you meetin’ her.” Rick flushed and laughed uncertainly. “Hell, I guess that _does_ sound crazy.”

“No, honey,” Negan murmured above him, “it doesn’t. It doesn’t sound crazy at all. You don’t have to explain that shit to me. I fucking get it.”

Rick moved the hand pressed against Negan’s chest and slowly traced the script looped under his collarbone. His eyes drifted up, soft and questioning.

“You know, don’t you?” Negan asked softly. “I was wondering why you never asked, but it’s because you already know. Who told you? Bud, I guess.”

Rick swallowed, feeling guilty without understanding why. “I really don’t know anything about it. Just that she passed. Bud mentioned it way back, but he didn’t mean to tell. He thought I already knew, that’s all.”

Negan was silent for so long that Rick felt apprehension slide coldly through him. “Fuck,” Negan muttered finally. “I guess you wanna hear it from me, huh?”

 _Yes,_ Rick thought, but he shook his head a little where it still rested against Negan’s shoulder, brows knitting. “Only if you wanna tell it.”

Negan sighed, shifting slightly in his seat. “Rick. I fucking owe it to you, don’t I?”

“Negan -“

“We were kids when we got married. Head over heels for each other. But she got sick, and she…she didn’t last long. Less than a year after they first said ‘cancer,’ she was gone. I was in bad fucking shape for a long time after that.” He was silent for a moment. “Hell, that’s pretty much it,” he finished quietly. “It ain’t a long story.”

Rick slid a hand up to his cheek and urged his head down to meet his upturned gaze. His heart felt heavy and aching in his chest, as if it were on the verge of tearing open. It wasn’t a long story, but it was a horribly familiar one. “I’m sorry,” he said hoarsely, scanning his lover’s eyes.

Negan’s mouth twitched into a ghost of a smile. “We both lost our girls, didn’t we, darlin’?” he whispered, and his eyes grew wet as Rick watched helplessly.

That sick, sad ache in his chest deepened, and Rick surged against him in near desperation, winding his arms around his neck. “I’m sorry,” he whispered in his ear. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry. I know.” Negan felt stiff for a moment in his arms before he melted suddenly, softening and sinking against Rick, burying his face into the soft material of his shirt. Rick stroked the dark hair gently, letting his other hand clasp the back of his neck. He had never held Negan like this before, he realized, awed. The other man had never needed it - he had never bared himself in this way. Rick bent his head and rested his cheek against the dark hair.

“Baby,” Negan murmured into chest, his voice thick, “you’re sweet.” He pressed a few kisses into Rick’s chest beneath his lips and then chuckled, and Rick could hear his familiar smirk returning in it. “You gonna get in the back seat with me, darlin’? Show me how sweet you can be?”

Rick snorted faintly, smiling. “Having sex in public is a misdemeanor, Negan. If you’re in a car that’s parked outside, that’s public. I feel like you probably know that already.”

“Mmm.” Negan lifted his head, and his eyes were dry again. “What about second base, Deputy Do-Right? Come on. A little over-the-clothes shit, and then I’ll sneak you back into your house past curfew.” Negan’s hand wandered down his back, and his fingers dipped into the waistband of his jeans.

Rick gazed at him searchingly for a minute, trying to understand the sudden shift in him. It felt like a deflection, but then again, there was something raw and honest in Negan’s eyes. Something needy. “Just a little,” Rick breathed in agreement, reaching for him.

They did end up in the backseat after a couple of minutes of uncomfortable jostling against the gear shift as they embraced, mouths hungry and wet. Rick laughed as Negan tugged his hips and put him awkwardly on his back, feet kicking up against the door. The laugh was promptly swallowed in a kiss after Negan repositioned him, and Rick found himself moaning instead, arching and grinding himself mindlessly against the other man like teenager.

“That’s right,” Negan whispered hotly against his lips. “I know just how you like it, baby, don’t I?”

“Yeah,” Rick sighed blissfully, head lolling back.

Negan took the hint, attacking his throat with his lips and tongue. “You’re all mine, aren’t you, Georgia?” he sighed against the warm skin of Rick’s neck. He trailed soft kisses there before sucking hard at the juncture with his shoulder, and Rick gasped at the sudden, sharp pain of the bruise he left there. He fisted a hand in Negan’s hair and gave a tug, pulling him back up to his lips so that he could answer him with his hungry lips and eager tongue - _yes, yes, all yours._

—

Rick was serious about the whole misdemeanor thing, to Negan’s dismay, so he had to endure the drive back to his motel with his cock hard as fucking steel and aching between his legs. He tried to will himself down for his own sake, but he fucking couldn’t. He could still feel the lingering touch of Rick’s hands gentle on his head and neck as he had soothed him, and he wanted nothing more than to sink deep into the man’s tight, satin-soft heat and use his body to tell him what could not be spoken aloud. Not yet. Not while it was still so confused and unsteady in his own mind, like a baby colt clambering to its legs for the first time. _I think I love him._ So close on the memories of Lucille, it sent a pang of confused sorrow through him.

_Come on, man. Did you really think there would never be anyone else?_

_I guess I did,_ he answered the echo of Simon’s voice in his mind, _but I was wrong, and that shit is fucking terrifying._

When Lucille had first gotten sick, he had showered her with promise after desperate promise - _I’ll never let anything happen to you, baby, I swear._ _You’re gonna be fine. Everything’s gonna be fine._ He was a man who craved control, who protected what was his with rabid ferocity, so it felt like a personal _fuck you_ from the universe when every last promise he made was broken against the hellish power of the illness that drained her life away. The wake of her death had been agony - breathless, mindless, and seemingly endless. That he lived through that blitz of grief, rage, and self-destruction surprised him, but when he did, he swore to himself that he would _never_ give another person the power to break him like that. He understood now that he couldn’t keep that promise, either.

Negan watched Rick as he drove. His cheeks were flushed that familiar pink, and his was shirt half-unbuttoned and baring skin now adorned with darkening bruises from a hungry mouth. Negan couldn’t tear his eyes away from him, and his heart throbbed with a wild fear. _Too fucking late for that, slick,_ he told himself, and his palms grew damp. _Too fucking late to get off this fucking train._ He didn’t want to, anyway. He had never wanted to. He had flung himself into this headlong, and a part of him had known from that first fucking day that this was where he was going to land. _I think I love him._

He drew Rick into his arms gently when they finally made it back to his room, dropping a kiss on his forehead that would have been chaste if it wasn’t accompanied by the obscene press of his hard length.

“Think Molly has her earplugs in?” Rick murmured, hands fisting in Negan’s jacket.

Negan laughed, cresting his thumb over Rick’s cheekbone. He gazed into the clear blue eyes, and that fear came back, that wild, sweet fear, and he knew he was lost. “You know what, baby? I really don’t give a fuck.”

He undressed Rick gently, with care, kissing every inch of skin revealed to him with reverence. Rick shivered and sighed beneath him as he did, eyes half-lidded and hazy as they watched him. Negan sat back on his heels when he had finished baring him, drinking in the sight of him sprawled, soft and trusting and open, on the rumpled sheets.

Rick swallowed, shifting a little as he flushed under his gaze. “Negan,” he laughed softly, self-conscious. “What…?”

Negan lifted his eyes to his and smiled. “You’re so fucking beautiful, baby,” he murmured. “I never get tired of looking at you.” He slid warm hands up Rick’s parted thighs, eyes trailing the path of his touch. “Fucking look at you,” he marveled. He reached out and brushed his fingertips, feather-light, against Rick’s hot, hard length, sending the breath stuttering out of him in a pitiful, soundless whimper. Negan caught his eyes again and gave a swift wink. “Look at _that_ ,” he teased gently, voice too warm for any real mischief.

“Don’t just look,” Rick whispered, cheeks glowing red.

Negan chuckled. “No? What should I do?” He slowly stripped off the white t-shirt he was still wearing, watching Rick’s eyes follow as he revealed his broad, inked chest. He bent slowly, holding Rick’s gaze as he approached his straining cock. He opened his mouth and let his warm breath ghost over him, getting within a hair’s breadth of tasting him before pulling back teasingly.

Rick whimpered, hips shifting towards him. “Oh, Negan, please,” he begged in a strained tone, “don’t tease me. I need you.”

That put a shudder through him right down to his toes, and he bent his head to hide his expression. _I’m the one that needs you, Rick,_ he thought as he immediately drew him deep into his warm mouth. Rick sobbed above him, entire body tightening, and Negan rubbed his thighs soothingly as he bobbed his head over him. Strong fingers stroked shakily through his dark hair, and a distant memory stirred: Rick, on his back on the thin, starched sheets of that little motel across the way from the garage, bucking hard against him as he fought his helpless whimpers. Jesus, how the hell had he managed it? How he had gotten the man beneath him to let him in like that, to trust him? It was nothing less than fucking astounding. Negan poured his awe into his ministrations, and Rick was soon spilling into his eager mouth as he panted sharply, seemingly too breathless to cry out.

Negan crawled slowly up his body, licking his lips and feeling very satisfied with himself. He lifted his head and was about to say something sly and sultry, but the words died in his throat when he saw Rick’s red eyes and wet cheeks. His heart gave a lurch. “Baby,” he whispered, brow furrowing, “what’s wr-“

Rick was shaking his head urgently. “Nothing’s _wrong_ , Negan,” he whispered thickly. “Please. I want you inside.” He lifted his knees, thighs slipping up around his waist.

Negan, bent his head to his and kissed him hungrily, feeling his hard slamming against his ribs. _Oh, fuck_. He was so, so fucking lost. He nosed to his cheek and lapped lightly at the salty wetness there. “Shh, baby. You don’t have to say ‘please.’ You can have whatever you want.” He was surprised to feel hands on his face, turning him back to look into Rick’s eyes, ocean-blue and limitless in depth.

“I want you to make love to me,” he whispered, “the way that you know how, the way that makes me come all the way apart.”

 _Oh, fuck._ “Honey,” Negan began shakily, and after that all other words refused to take shape in his mouth. He raked his feverish gaze all over Rick’s face instead, lifting a hand to cup his flushed, damp cheek. He bent his head slowly, and he kissed him like Rick was something holy, like Negan was a penitent seeking benediction.  
  
They tangled together on the bed, and they made love. No words were spoken; it was only their bodies that whispered and sighed and pleaded.

They clung to each other afterwards, breathing heavily in the stillness, hearts too full to speak.

Rick’s phone gave shrill chirp as it rattled across the floor where it had been discarded with his pants, and he gave a rueful chuckle into Negan’s hair. “I wish I didn’t have to get that,” he said softly.

Negan smiled, nuzzling into Rick’s damp neck. “Me too, sweetheart. I guess it’s time to get the kids from cousin Maggie?”

“Mm-hm,” Rick sighed sleepily. He pushed himself up to his elbows after a moment, and Negan let him go reluctantly. He slipped from the bed, gathering his clothing where it was strewn haphazardly across the floor. This was usually when Negan would make his teasing apologies about tearing Rick’s clothes off of him, but the solemnity that still hung thick in the air precluded all of that. Rick sat slowly on the edge of the bed, staring at the rumpled shirt in his hands. He gathered his courage. “Bud said…that you never got, uh…serious with anyone else, after she passed,” he said quietly.

Negan sat up and sidled up to his back, sliding arms around his warm waist. “No,” he agreed, lips at his ear. “Not until now.”

Rick turned his head to look at him, and the expression in his eyes, anxious and uncertain, sliced into Negan.

“Come on, baby,” he said in a near whisper, tightening his arms around him. “Use your fucking head. Been chasing after you like a fuckin’ dog. Six hundred miles.”

Rick swallowed with a click. “Come have dinner with us tomorrow,” he said faintly. “Me an’ my family.” He flushed a little under Negan’s intense gaze. “I’m, uh…well, I’m not much of a cook, but…”

“No?” Negan questioned, a smile beginning to tug his lips. “Why don’t I come over and help, then? I happen to a great fucking cook.” His laughter rang out in response to Rick’s incredulous look. “You don’t fucking believe me? Honey, you got no _faith_. Hell, I used to …” he trailed off, jovial expression faltering. He caught Rick looking at him inquisitively, and he reached out and dragged a hand through his curls. “Like I said, baby, I’m a great fucking cook. I’ll prove it to you.”

Rick turned slowly in Negan’s arms, letting the shirt in his hands fall to his lap. He lifted his hands to frame Negan’s face, thumbs stroking over the high cheekbones, before leaning in for a soft, wet kiss. “Sounds nice, honey,” he breathed.

It was later, as he was getting into his car, that he realized he was wrong about the phone call. It hadn’t been from Maggie. He stared at the number, feeling the hair at the back of his neck prickle and stand. _Telemarketer,_ he told himself. _Goddamn persistent one._ He started the car, putting the phone back in his pocket. He looked in the rearview mirror as if expecting to see something lurking in his backseat, and he shook his head at his own foolishness.

“You’ve been a cop for too long, Rick,” he told himself out loud, and the absurdity of speaking to himself that way made him smile. He pulled out of the motel parking lot, turning up the radio and letting his thoughts settle back on the man whose bed he had just left. He had been planning on delivering the dinner invitation all morning, but it had still felt impulsive as it tumbled from his mouth. The enormity of the step that it represented scared the hell out of him, and he was besieged with every possible worry. He sighed as he turned the corner to the main road, feeling his stomach roil uneasily in the midst of all the anxious thoughts.

 _Worrying isn’t gonna change anything._ It was Lori’s voice that gently admonished him from the back of his mind. She was fond of that phrase, and Rick felt his lips pulling into a sad smile. _I know, honey,_ he answered her silently. _I know it ain’t._

—

Rick had to admit that he was more than a little skeptical of Negan’s claim that he was a _great fucking cook._

“You’re really serious about this?” Rick said amusedly as he watched the man tip an armful of grocery bags onto his kitchen table. He had been inexplicably nervous leading him through the house: Negan had only been by a handful of times, usually just to either pick Rick up or drop him off. He had never properly seen the inside, and it felt like the first, anxious step of the new intimacy they were embarking on. Negan was in his house, about to meet his family. Rick’s heart had been somersaulting throughout the day.

“Rick, Rick, Rick,” Negan sighed. “That really hurts. The doubt. You got no faith in me, Georgia.” Negan caught him around the waist and dragged him in, pressing teasing kisses into his neck. “You’re gonna eat my world famous spaghetti and meatballs, and then you’re gonna eat your words.”

Rick pecked his lips, smiling. “World famous spaghetti and meatballs, huh?”

“Mm-hm,” Negan rumbled, hands falling to his hips to squeeze into the soft flesh there. “It’ll be the second world famous thing I’ve fed you.”

Rick gave a laugh mingled with a groan as he tried to pull away. “Really, Negan?”

“I’m talking about my cock.”

“I got - yeah, I know. For Christ’s sake, Negan. Beth’s gonna be home with the kids any minute.”

Negan let him go reluctantly, a mischievous grin plastered to his face. “Guess I better behave, then.”

As if on cue, the front door swung open, and several pairs of footsteps pattered inside. Rick smoothed his suddenly moist palms down the front of his jeans, leaning back against the counter.

Beth appeared in the archway to the kitchen, holding Judith in her arms. “Hi,” she said with a shy smile. “You must be Negan.”

“That’s me, darlin’. You must be the angel on top of the Christmas tree come to life. Rick didn’t tell me his cousin Beth was the prettiest girl in town.”

Beth reddened with embarrassed pleasure. “Ain’t you charmin’,” she laughed, shifting Judith in her arms. “Bet you say that to all the girls in town, though. Can you say hi, Jujubee?”

Judith was eyeing Negan with the uncertainty that comes on at the end of babyhood.

“Look at you,” Negan said softly, eyes on the tiny girl. “Aren’t you a doll. You’re not too sure about me, are you, princess? That’s okay. I grow on people.” He reached over and rested his hand comfortably at the small of Rick’s back, and warmth suffused him at the gentle, familiar touch.

“I’m gonna give her a bath and put her down for her nap,” Beth said, smiling. “She’ll be more perky by dinnertime, I guess.” She passed from the kitchen up the stairs.

“Your baby’s even cuter in person, Rick,” Negan mused, slipping his hand from his back to his waist. “Goddamn.”

Rick turned into the embrace, pressing close to Negan. Something about the warm, delighted way Negan had watched Judith had caused his chest to ache with happiness. “She’s shy with new people,” he murmured. “It’s her age. Bet she’ll warm up fast, though. You are pretty charmin’.”

“Think so?” Negan whispered before he kissed him, slow and sweet.

“Hey,” a voice called nonchalantly, and Rick nearly leapt straight up into the air.

“C-carl,” he said, feeling his cheeks begin to burn. “Didn’t hear you come in.”

“I walked in with Beth,” he replied with a shrug. He had his phone clutched in his hand and was still tapping away.

“Well, shit,” Negan said, chuckling, “this is a really fu-…ah, awkward way to meet, isn’t it? Hey, kid. I’m Negan. I’m the guy that’s been macking on your dad.”

“Negan,” Rick protested, feeling his face get even hotter.

“Yeah, I can see that. I’m Carl.” His fingers were still flying over his phone, and Rick cleared his throat.

“Carl, come on. It’s bad manners to be on your phone when you’re talkin’ to someone. What are you doin’, anyway?”

“Texting Sophia about you necking in the kitchen,” Carl said, and suddenly he flashed an amused smile that left Rick equal parts embarrassed and relieved.

Negan’s ringing laugh filled the kitchen. “Nice to finally meet you, kid. Your daddy’s told me a lot about you.”

“Yeah, same. You’re a mechanic?”

“Mm-hm. Trying to set up a garage just outside town for my boss’ cousin. You into that sh-…uh, stuff?”

Carl shrugs. “Maybe. I like cars, I guess.” He reached up and absently adjusted the black patch that sat snug over his eye.

“That’s a bad-ass eye patch, kid,” Negan said, nodding towards it. “What’s going on underneath? Do you have to keep it covered, or can you show and tell?”

“Negan,” Rick said sharply, frowning.

Negan shot him a surprised look. “What? What’s the big deal?”

Carl looked at him curiously for a moment. “It’s no big deal,” he said slowly. He reached up and undid secure fastening of the patch, letting it fall away from his ruined eye. The socket was grisly and raw-looking, all stringy scar tissue. Somehow the mundane setting of the kitchen, crammed with the whimsical knick-knacks they had accumulated as a family, made the sight that much more gruesome, and Rick felt his heartbeat pick up nervously as silence stretched out between the three of them.

“Kid,” Negan said appreciatively, “that is metal as _fuck_.”

And before Rick’s shocked eyes, Carl smiled. “I guess,” he replied.”What are we having for dinner?”

“Spaghetti and meatballs, Rick junior. It’s gonna knock you on your ass, cross my heart.”

“Cool.” With that, Carl bent his head back over his phone and wandered away, patch clutched in his hand.

Negan caught Rick staring at him. “What? Did I- what?” He faltered. “Too many four letter words? I can tone it down, Rick, I’m just not…you know, not used to being around kids.”

Rick shook his head, slipping his arms back around his waist. “He never takes it off,” he said, swallowing around the lump in his throat. “I don’t think I…I haven’t seen him take it off since it happened. He’s self-conscious about it.”

Negan hummed softly, brow furrowing. “Did I fuck up? You mad at me, Rick?”

“No,” Rick replied instantly. “No, I think you…I think you made him happy.” _I think I love you._

Negan pressed a kiss to the top of his head. “Well, if you want to see happy, wait until you all eat this fucking delicious shit I’m making for you.” He chuckled, moving away to dig into the bags. He bustled around the kitchen, gently rebuffing Rick’s repeated offers of help. “Come on, baby, put your feet up. I’m trying to fucking impress you over here. I’m not gonna make you work.”

“You _are_ impressing me,” Rick laughed as he watched Negan chop vegetables with the practiced hand of an expert. “I can hardly make mac n’ cheese from the package.”

Negan laughed, rocking back on his heels. “That so, Georgia? Well, stick with me, kid, and you won’t have to.”

Rick looked down and pushed a small bottle of spices idly along the table, trying to hide the sudden rush of warmth that loosed in him. “Okay,” he said simply. He cleared his throat. “If you ain’t gonna let me help at all, I guess I’ll set the table.”

“Well, I’m not gonna fucking let you help after what you just told me. Stay away from my spaghetti, Rick.”

“That’s probably for the best,” Rick agreed wryly, turning to open a cabinet and fetch the dishes. It was pleasant, busying himself how he could around the kitchen as Negan cooked and chattered and teased him. It felt easy and _right_. It felt like Negan belonged there, had belonged there all along. _Easy, boy,_ he told himself, feeling his heart accelerate at the thought. _You’re gettin’ ahead of things._

Maggie joined them just as Negan was ladling out generous plates of spaghetti drowned in sauce and piled high with meatballs.

She paused in the doorway, clutching a small shopping bag overflowing with several pints of ice cream from their favorite parlor. “It smells like heaven in here,” she exclaimed.

Negan chuckled as he placed a heaping plate on the table. “Wait until you taste it, doll.” He straightened up, eyes sparkling. “I guess I finally get to meet Cousin Maggie.”

“What’ve you heard about Cousin Maggie?” she returned with a coy laugh.

Rick watched them, feeling his nerves thrumming. Maggie’s eyes flitted over Negan, quietly sizing him up, and it was so goddamned _important_ that she like him.

Negan’s tongue came to rest at the corner of his mouth as he considered his answer. “That you’re always here when Rick needs you.”

Maggie blinked, and a warm smile spread over her face. “And it’s the truth.” She walked to the refrigerator to tuck away the ice cream. “Negan,” she said, turning and sticking out her hand. “It’s real nice to meet you.”

Rick felt the tension in his body ease as their hands clasped. “I’ll, uh…go get Beth and the kids.” He slipped away, feeling almost light-headed with relief.

Negan was right: Rick had to eat his earlier words. Dinner was delicious. Negan watched in obvious satisfaction as they all ate with relish.

Beth gave a happy sigh as she put her fork down. “This is the best spaghetti sauce I _ever_ ate. Will you teach me the recipe? I’m learnin’ how to cook more-“

Maggie snickered, and Beth shot her sister an aggrieved look.

“I said I’m _learnin’_!” Beth insisted.

“Learnin’ how to burn the house down,” Maggie teased, taking another bite.

“That was just a _pan fire_ ,” Beth said, with great dignity, “and it only happened once, Miss Smarty.”

“Sure I’ll teach you, darlin’. You’ll be the barefoot contessa in no time, and then you can show Maggie over here, just like _I_ showed Rick. He didn’t have any faith in me, either.” Negan wound his ankle around Rick’s under the table.

“All right, so I was wrong,” Rick laughed. “I can admit it.”

“Who taught you?” Carl asked as he wound another forkful of spaghetti up tightly.

Negan shifted, face falling slightly. “Well…my wife. Before she passed. She loved to cook. Wanted to be a chef. We spent a lot of time together that way. You know, her practicing her recipes and trying to teach me. I treated it like a big joke at first, honestly, I was a real as- uh, jerk about it. But then, I don’t know. Maybe it was seeing her get so excited about it - I started loving it, too. After she got sick, cooking together was one of the only things that cheered her up.” He looked up at the solemn faces around him and gave a short laugh. “Hell, I’m sorry. I’m bringing down the room. Do you all wanna hear about the time me and a buddy of mine almost rode our bikes right into a twister in Kansas?”

The distraction worked.

“A _tornado_?” Carl said, eye widening.

“You bet your…boots,” Negan grimaced, shooting Rick a look that said _see? I’m trying_. “We got this idea in our heads to ride down to the Grand Canyon. From Virginia.”

“You went all that way on a motorcycle?” Beth said, eyes as round as Carl’s.

“Mm-hm. Seemed like a great idea at the time to a couple of young idiots.”

“Dad would never let me ride a motorcycle,” Carl said wistfully. “Especially not now.” He gestured to the eye, and Rick’s shoulders slumped.

Negan caught it, eyes flitting briefly to Rick’s. “Aw, kid, come on - your daddy wouldn’t be happy to see you on a bike if you had six eyes stuck all around your head for a 360 degree view.”

Carl’s lips twitched. “That’s true. What happened with the tornado, though?”

“Well, we were ridin’ along, and suddenly we realized the roads were empty. Guess the locals had the head’s up and cleared out. Sky was turning green, looked like something out of a horror movie. I turned my head, and I saw it. Way off in the distance, but it looked like the sky was reachin’ down towards the ground. Funnel cloud, or whatever they call it. We saw that, and we both just about lost our minds. We did the dumbest thing we could’ve done: stayed on the road and rode like hell, like we were gonna _outrun_ it.” Negan chuckled and shook his head. “We joked a lot about being blown to Oz after that, but the truth is, we were lucky we _weren’t_. Wouldn’t have been a yellow-brick road on the other side of _that_. The thing was headed the other way, that’s what saved our stupid a- well, you know. We got into all kinds of trouble on that bone-headed trip, I’ll tell you, but that day was something else.”

“What other kind of trouble?” Beth asked eagerly, and that was all it took for the tone of the conversation to shift completely away from the private grief Carl’s innocent question had unearthed. Negan regaled them with some of his road stories - highly edited versions, to Rick’s relief. He gathered the empty dishes from the table and returned with the ice cream, smiling to himself as he observed them from a distance: Maggie, Beth, and Carl were listening attentively to Negan’s animated storytelling, completely under his spell. Even Judith had fixed her big blue eyes on Negan, apparently forgetting her uneasiness around strangers.

Rick lifted her from her highchair and hesitated. “Do you wanna…hold her?” he asked, almost shyly. “I was gonna give her a little ice cream. Maybe she’ll let you feed it to her.”

Negan grinned and held out his arms. Rick was surprised when Judith went without protest. He scooped some strawberry ice cream into a bowl and handed it over to Negan. He fed Judith tiny bites, chuckling at her eager squealing as she attacked the spoon with her tiny mouth.

“It must have been amazin’ when you finally made it to the Grand Canyon after all that,” Beth sighed.

“It was fu- uh, it was worth it. It was the second most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen in my life.” He winked at Rick over Judith’s tawny curls as he said it, lips curling into a flirtatious smirk-smile.

“What was the fir-“ Carl paused, grimacing around a mouthful of ice cream he had just served himself. “Whatever. Gross.”

“Awwww,” Beth sigh-squealed in delight at the same time.

Maggie’s eyes met Rick’s over the table, and the warmth and approval he saw there made his chest tighten and throb.

—

After the girls had gone, Judith had been put to bed, and Carl had tucked himself away in his room to slave over his phone like a red-blooded American teenager, Rick went back to the kitchen to find Negan washing up dishes in the sink. He watched him quietly for a moment, standing in the archway. He was dressed that night as he usually was: black jeans, heavy boots, and a white teeshirt that clung to his muscular chest. Rick let his eyes wander him, taking in the way the soft material stretched over his broad shoulders and his belt was slung low on his narrow hips. His eyes traced his right arm covered in inked barbed wire that twined almost delicately down to his wrist and his left announcing REGRET KILLS in blocked letters set over a blood-splattered floral spray. He dropped his gaze to his strong thighs and remembered how they felt pressed hard and hot against his. _Mine,_ he thought hungrily, startling himself a little. He crossed the kitchen as if drawn by a magnetic pull.

“Negan,” he said softly so as not to startle him before he took the last few steps that brought him flush against his broad back. He wrapped his arms around his waist and nuzzled into the back of his shoulder, letting his eyes drift shut.

“Mmm.” Negan leaned into Rick’s touch, and Rick could practically hear the sly smile curling his lips. ”What the hell is this, Georgia? Wait, I get it,” he said, voice falling to a rumbling purr, “this is your _thing_ , huh, Rick? Me washing dishes, real domestic - fuck, baby, I can lean into it. You got an apron lying around here? I’ll put it on for you, take everything else off, and you can -“

“Negan,” Rick laughed helplessly, burying his head in the back of his shoulder, arms tight around his waist. He kissed him through the soft cloth of his t-shirt, and once he started, he found that he couldn’t stop raining kiss after kiss on him. “Stay here,” he whispered into his back. “Please, baby. Don’t leave. Just stay here with me. Tonight.”

Negan shucked the rubber gloves he was wearing off before spinning in Rick’s arms. He slid one arm around the blue eyed man’s waist, skimming a hand up his chest to land at Rick’s jaw. “You don’t have to say ‘please’,” he said huskily, grasping his face gently but firmly. Rick’s eyes were half-lidded and nearly dazed, and Negan took a moment to admire the sight of him like that before leaning in and hungrily kissing him. “Mine,” he sighed against Rick’s lips.

It clicked.

It had clicked when Carl had smiled at him, remaining eye crinkling in amusement and appreciation. When Maggie had looked over at him, that glow in her eyes. When Judith had reached and smacked a strawberry ice-cream covered hand right over his chin while he laughed in delight. When Beth had listened with rapt attention as he amused her with story after story. The utter certainty of what he was feeling had just clicked in him. The doubt, the unease, the _I think_ had vanished.

_I love him. I know I love him._

The words echoed in his mind like a prayer as they tiptoed upstairs, hand-in-hand like teenagers.

They echoed as they stripped each other with practiced ease, as Negan turned himself onto his stomach and shot him a wink over his shoulder, an unspoken command in his eyes, and as Rick obeyed that command, stroking him slowly and gently from within with slick fingers as Negan wriggled with pleasure beneath him, purring like a contented cat. They echoed as Rick slid into him, sobbing soundlessly against his shoulder as the soft, tight heat swallowed him. They echoed as they came together, panting a symphony of harsh breaths and singing sighs into the dark room.

And they echoed as Negan drew him against his chest and kissed the top of his curly head, tucking him snugly under his arm, and as Rick fought the tears that threatened to overflow and spill onto his lover’s chest until he finally succumbed to a deep and contented slumber.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yet again, I shaved off a chunk of this chapter for 1) length and 2) avoiding stuffing too many things into one go. The next chapter will not take so heinously long to go up, I promise, as it's mostly written. This fic is kind of my happy place right now, and even though there is Stuff coming (I'm sure everyone's wondering what's up with the phone calls as well as the other little unexplained things), overall this is a story about these relationships growing and these characters finding each other. I hope it warms you all up to read it the way it warms me up to write it. :3 Peace and happy 2018, friends.


	7. Through the Cold, Part I

The weeks went by, and they were dizzyingly happy ones.

Negan was increasingly present in the Grimes household. He made them dinner. He showed Carl how to throw a curveball. He sang Black Sabbath songs to Judith like they were lullabies, and she giggled and squealed in accompaniment. He spent more nights in Rick’s bed than out of it.

And Rick was _happy_. He was happier than he thought he ever would be again. Sometimes his mind tried to worry at it, tried to pull out every lingering uncertainty and insecurity that underlay the joy: _what if he don’t feel the same way? What about when the garage picks up, and it’s time for him to go back to Virginia? What about when -_

He stuffed those questions deep down inside, and that was easy to do these days because Negan was always close by to distract him.

“What is going on in that pretty head?” he would muse when he found Rick lost in thought. He would kiss into the soft curls covering the head in question. “I’m dying to know, Georgia.”

_Don’t leave me. I love you. I know I love you._

Instead of that, Rick would tilt his head back for a kiss and say: “Nothin’, honey. Nothin’ at all.”

—

Rick came home one balmy evening to find the house filled with the mouth-watering scent of something roasting in the oven.

“That smells amazin’,” he sighed as he rounded the corner into the kitchen.

Negan was stirring something in a pot on the stove, and he chuckled as he turned. “Yeah, it does. Too bad I won’t get to eat it tonight. Brining that thing was a real pain in the ass.”

Rick furrowed his brows, remembering. “Right, you’ll be out at the garage tonight. Ain’t that it?”

Negan hummed in assent, leaning back against the kitchen counter and stretching out his arms for Rick, who went to him with a shy smile. “There’s a late shipment coming in, and it’s an important one. We’re trying to sign a contract with the trucking company hauling it for us, so I have to make nice with the truckers that are riding out. I was gonna take ‘em to Dale’s and put a couple drinks in ‘em. Hell, I’ll blow ‘em if I have to. We really need this fucking contract.”

Rick laughed, smoothing a palm over his chest. “Goin’ to Dale’s is a good idea. Don’t blow ‘em in the middle of his bar, though. I don’t think he’d like that.”

“Don’t be such a narc, Rick.” He kissed his forehead affectionately. “Sure you can’t come with me, darlin’? Beth said she wouldn’t mind staying over with the kids.”

“Wish I could. I got an early start tomorrow, though.”

Negan pressed another kiss to him, this one to his lips. “Well, I’ll be crashing out there. Motel Possum. Been awhile since I spent the night away from you, baby, huh? You gonna miss me?”

“Yes,” Rick said honestly, blinking up at him.

Negan’s answering smile was pleased and a little wistful. “Sweet thing,” he murmured, “I’m going to come all over myself thinking about you tonight.”

Rick laughed and slipped from his arms, flushing. “Jesus, Negan. Tell me what I have to finish up here.”

“Nah, Rick. I’ll finish up.”

“You don’t trust me,” Rick accused, smiling faintly.

“Not in the kitchen, Georgia.”

Rick reached over and pinched his backside, earning a surprised and amused yelp. “Fine. Be that way.”  
  
“Save the kinky shit for when I get back tomorrow, baby,” Negan growled, pinning him with a heated look that made Rick flush a darker pink.

Rick busied himself setting the table and washing pots as Negan pulled the bird from the oven, mashed the potatoes, and dressed the steaming green beans. He marveled at the moments like this: the easy domesticity of them. He had never expected, never _trusted_ that things could be this way with the ink-covered, foul-mouthed, leather-clad man that had caught him so surely and effortlessly one cold day in Virginia. He had thoughts the sheer weight of responsibility that formed the core of his life might chase away a man like Negan. He had thought he might not want him once he witnessed the full chaotic sprawl of his life, with all that existed outside of their long, delicious nights spent on tousled motel sheets. Sheets that neither of them had to get up in the morning to wash, dry, and change before taking the kids to school and going to work. He had been wrong, and sometimes the thought of how he had underestimated Negan crept up and shamed him.

Negan caught him watching as he set a serving platter on the table. “What? What are you looking at?”

Rick swallowed. “Lookin’ at you, honey.”

Negan’s eyes darkened at him as a lazy smile curled his lips. Rick knew that expression, and his thighs clenched involuntarily as a hot thrill danced through them. “You’re gonna make it real hard on me, aren’t you, baby? Not bein’ in your bed tonight?”

Rick was about to answer when the front door opened, and he frowned. The kids were upstairs, and he wasn’t expecting Beth or Maggie.

He felt his mouth fall open a little in surprise when Shane stepped around the corner. He was still in uniform, just like Rick, and he looked brooding and grim. He had stayed behind at the station when Rick left, still shuffling through paperwork. He had been called onto the carpet by the sheriff for the umpteenth time for his delinquency when it came to that less exciting aspect of police work, and he was displaying a relative diligence in the aftermath that would undoubtedly fade in a few weeks, just as it always did.

He stopped at the entryway to the kitchen, looking back and forth from Negan to Rick. “Hey,” he muttered.

“Hey, Shane,” Rick said. “Somethin’ up at the station?” He was suddenly nervous at the proximity of the two men, and he wiped his damp palms against his pants.

Shane hesitated, eyes shifting to Negan. “Yeah.”

Negan smiled coldly. “Well, don’t fucking mind me.”

Shane shot him a sullen glare. “It’s official business. Police business. Can’t talk about it in front of you.”

“That so? Good thing I was on my way out anyway, then,” Negan replied with more than a hint of mocking in his voice. He licked his lower lip and turned to Rick. “You call me if you need me, darlin’.” He leaned forward, and for a nervous moment Rick thought he would make a wet, messy show of it just for the sake of riling Shane up. Instead, Negan gave him a soft, close-mouthed kiss, his hand briefly cupping his jaw. “Good night, Georgia.” He walked around Rick, who felt the lack of his solid heat immediately. He passed by Shane with a toothy, provoking grin. “Good night, Deputy. You should stay for dinner. I cook a mean bird. Brined the sonofabitch for hours.”

Rick watched him disappear into the living room, his dark hair and clothes bleeding immediately into the darkness like he was dissipating into it. It wasn’t until the distant slam of the front door brought him back to the present moment that he realized he had been wordlessly staring after him. He turned to Shane, and he read something cold and contemptful in his eyes. All of a sudden, Rick was furious. “Don’t you dare look at me like that,” he snarled. “Who the hell do you think you are?”

Shane jerked in surprise, and he had the grace to look abashed. “I don’t trust that bastard,” he muttered, a brick-red flush climbing his neck.

Rick snorted, trying to get himself under control. “Well, he don’t like you, either. What’d you come here to tell me?”

Shane looked at him, and the pity he saw in his lifelong friend’s eyes had his heart pounding before Shane even spoke. “Philip Blake has a court date,” he muttered finally.

Everything went _strange_ for a moment, and Rick realized suddenly that he was sitting on the floor with Shane leaning over him anxiously and clutching at a shoulder that no longer felt like it belonged to him.

“Rick? Shit, Rick, I’m sorry. Rick?”

“How?” Rick heard himself ask through numb lips.

“They said he’s fit for trial now. The, you know, the shrinks at the hospital they got him locked up at. Meds kicked in, I don’t know. Rick,” Shane said urgently, suddenly falling to his knees beside him, “they’re gonna convict him, and then he’s gonna go to fucking jail where he fucking belongs. The judge is gonna hit him with consecutive sentences, and he’s gonna die on the inside. Fucking better that way, instead of him in some cushy fucking nut hospital.”

Rick shook his head slowly. He clambered to his feet - feet that didn’t feel like they were _exactly_ his, not just now - and made his way to the kitchen sink, Shane hovering anxiously a few steps behind him. He twisted the water on and waited for it to turn icy-cold before leaning forward and shoving his head under the stream. It jolted him back to his own body, and he let out a hiss as the breath was chased from his lungs.

Shane yanked him away from it, bracing him up by the arms. “Jesus, Rick, what the fuck are you doing?”

“Doctor taught me that,” he answered calmly. “I’m all right. Just got rattled. You wanna stay for dinner? There’s plenty.”

Shane was eyeing him doubtfully. “You don’t look all right, man. Shovin’ your head in the sink like that. You look like a wet cat.”

Rick laughed, and he could hear the edge of hysteria in it. “Don’t be an asshole, Shane. You wanna stay or not?”

His lips twitched. “Is he comin’ back?”

Rick stared at him, disbelieving. “ _He?_ Negan? Really, Shane? This is what you wanna do right now?”

Incredibly, Shane went on. “He livin’ here now? That’s what it seems like.”

Rick took a long, deep breath through his nose. “I’m gonna go upstairs and change. Then I’m gonna get Judith and Carl down for dinner. You’re gonna sit down and eat with us. You’re gonna act like nothing’s wrong, so that they don’t get scared. And you’re not gonna say anything shitty about Negan in front of the kids. You shouldn’t say anything shitty about Negan in front of _me_ , Shane, because I love him. He’s fucking good to me, to _us_ , and I love him. Get it through your goddamn skull.”

Shane stared at him, slack-jawed with shock as he wheeled around and strode away. He half-expected him to be gone by the time he got back downstairs, but he was pouring out a few glasses of sweet tea, and he grinned when he saw the kids.

“Hey, Uncle Shane,” Carl said, crossing over and settling down on a chair. “Pour me a glass?”

“Already got you, bud,” Shane said, setting a glass down by Carl.

“Did Negan go to his thing?”

“Yeah,” Rick answered as he settled Judith into her highchair. “He did.”

“Bummer he’s missing dinner,” Carl said, spooning mashed potatoes onto his plate.

Rick had to agree.

But the dinner went exactly as he instructed: Shane chatted so casually with Carl about school and sports that Rick himself could almost believe that what he had told him was some sort of terrible hallucination. He fed Judith as he listened to them, focusing on her big eyes and sweet face. She stuck her hand happily into the bowl of applesauce in front of her, and Rick found himself suddenly fighting back tears at the sight of her innocent joy. _Just hold it together until after dinner,_ he pleaded with himself. _Then you can put her to bed, Carl will go off to his room, and you can fall apart. Just make it through dinner. Come on, boy. Not in front of the kids._ He thought he could feel Shane’s eyes on him, and he took several slow, deep breaths.

Shane asked Carl if he was going out for the baseball team this season. Dinner went on. They all washed up together afterwards, and Rick took Judith up to bed. He returned downstairs to find Carl and Shane on the couch in front of a ball game. He handed Shane a beer and then wandered away to do some laundry, feeling Shane’s eyes follow him. Several loads later, Carl passed him on the stairs, headed to his bedroom.

“Don’t stay up all night texting Sophia, Carl. You got school tomorrow.”

“Yeah, yeah,” he smiled.

Rick smiled back. It must have looked real, because Carl went on without a second look.

Shane was standing in the kitchen, drumming his fingers on the back of a chair.

“Want me to hang around? Until…you know. Until Judas Priest gets back?”

“You don’t have to do that,” Rick said, not bothering to tell him that Judas Priest wasn’t coming back tonight.

Shane licked his lips, staring at him. “Okay.” He straightened up. “Okay.”

When the front door closed behind him, Rick sagged immediately against the archway of the kitchen. It was as if he were a doll that had only been brought to life by an audience, and his legs felt limp and useless beneath him. He leaned his head against the painted white wood of the arch, heart hammering so hard and fast he could feel it everywhere in his body. It was beating so furiously, making every inch of his skin tingle and throb, that Rick couldn’t discern his phone buzzing in his pocket at first.

He pulled it from his pocket slowly and read the familiar unfamiliar number flashing there. He knew, before he answered the call and lifted the phone to his ear in a hand that he didn’t feel convinced belonged to him in that moment, just who was calling. It seemed like he must have known all along.

“Is that you, Officer Grimes?” Philip Blake asked hoarsely at the end of the hissing, static-filled connection. “I’ve been trying to get in touch. I’ve been trying to get in touch for a very, very long time.”

—

The men that Negan had been tasked with wining and dining were nice enough. Hell, boozing with a couple of easygoing motherfuckers used to be Negan’s idea of perfect evening - as long as it ended with him taking someone cute home at the end of the night. Funny how fast that shit had changed for him. Now, all he could think about as he laughed with the group of men was _Rick Rick Rick_. The way he had looked at him in the kitchen earlier that day, his blue eyes dreamy and adoring, played over and over again in his mind. It made him feel both potent and weak, like a fucking king and like a slave all at the same goddamn time.

Needless to say, it also made him hard.

He slapped one of his companions on the shoulder. “Goin’ to use the head,” he called over the din of the classic jazz pouring from the speakers. It was mostly an excuse to check his phone, although he did have a good amount of beer sloshing around in his bladder. Getting rid of it wasn’t the easiest task, as the persistent thoughts of his lover had taken him to half mast. He chuckled ruefully as he handled himself. _Damn it, Rick._ After he tucked himself back into his pants and washed his hands in the small sink, he pulled out his phone.

2AM. He had briefly toyed with the idea of going back to Rick’s after this, but it probably wasn’t such a hot idea. He’d probably end up waking the entire house up, and Rick needed his sleep more than he needed to get pounded by his horny boyfriend.

 _Love you,_ he tapped out in a text before he realized what he was doing. He jerked in surprise, nearly dropping the phone into the sink. Jesus, he was buzzed. Can’t fucking spring that on someone in a 2AM text. He deleted the words, shaking his head at himself. _Thinking about you all night, honey,_ he wrote instead. That was fine. That was the truth, and the rest of the truth was still whispering beneath it. He sent the text and then tucked his phone back into his pocket with a sigh.

The contract was in the fucking bag, he could tell. It made business sense for both of them, and the truckers saw it. It was going to be a tidy source of revenue for the garage for years to come. He stopped and frowned at the thought. Years? Was he thinking in terms of years? The gig down here wasn’t supposed to last for years. He was supposed to help Jim set it up and then head back to Virginia.

He realized, in that moment, in the cramped bathroom of a bar, that he wasn’t fucking going back to Virginia.

“Of course you’re fucking not, you goddamned fucking _idiot_ ,” he told his reflection in the mirror. His fingers were tapping out confessions, and the memory of a look was making his heart swell and ache.

Not just his heart.

He leaned against the sink, sucking in a breath between his teeth. “Hold it together, idiot,” he muttered, addressing his reflection again. After he had willed himself down enough, he emerged from the bathroom and headed back into the crowded bar. He stopped in his tracks as he made out a familiar figure hunched over a drink in corner booth.

Shane. Negan’s lips twisted. The man had a couple empty glasses in front of him, and he looked every bit as grim as he did earlier that day.

 _Official police business, my asshole,_ Negan thought darkly. He put on a broad smile before he returned to the truckers clustered around a table. They had a handshake deal before the end of the night, and an appointment early the next morning to sign the papers that would make it official. Negan bundled them into a cab when the bar closed. He needed a cab himself, but he had something to take care of first.

He knew which car was his, because he had driven his goddamn police cruiser. The guy had a brass set, Negan had to give him that. Negan leaned on it, tilting his head up and taking in the velvet darkness of the night sky sprinkled with stars. _A lot more stars down here,_ he thought.

“The hell are you doin’ out here? You waitin’ for me?”

Negan straightened up. Shane was standing a few yards away, a sour expression on his face. “Yeah,” Negan replied, strolling towards him. “We need to talk.” He swung his fist without warning and landed a brutal blow to Shane’s jaw, sending the other man sprawling to the ground.

He rolled to his knees, spitting out a mouthful of sticky red. He shot to his feet and whirled to face Negan, eyes blazing and incredulous.

“You raped him,” Negan said flatly, and Shane’s face went slack with shock. “He doesn’t see it that way, but you know, if it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck and shoves its dick inside someone without fucking _checking in_ to see if that’s _cool_ , if that’s something that they’re gonna be _into_ , then it’s a fucking duck.” He cocked his head back and regarded him coldly. “You fucking get that, don’t you? He cares about you - do you care enough about him to fucking _get_ that?”

Shane hung his head, but not before Negan had seen the shame flood his eyes. “Yeah,” he grunted, spitting out another mouthful of blood. “Yeah. Yeah. I fuckin’ know what I did. I know it.”

“Uh-huh,” Negan said, unimpressed. “That’s fucking great, buddy. I’m glad you’re fucking clear on that shit. Rick doesn’t want me to mention it - he’d be fucking pissed if he knew I was talking to you like this now. But I feel like we needed to fucking clear the air, here. Get this shit straight between us. You and me.”

“Well, go on, boy. Get it straight,” Shane snarled suddenly, looking up at him, his dark eyes alive with both despair and an affronted anger. “I know I did a shitty-ass thing. I know I don’t deserve him forgivin’ me for it. But I also know that he _did_ , so what’s the fuckin’ point of all this? You just wanted to get your swing in, that it? Fine. Have another.” Shane jutted his face out.

Negan dipped his head back and laughed, and there was a dangerous quality to it as it floated into the humid air. “You know what? I’m good, man. I can’t fuck you up the way you deserve because of Rick, so let’s just fucking leave it at that. Oh, and _Shane_?” His voice dropped to a low, warning rumble. “You even _think_ about laying a hand on him again in any way he doesn’t want, I’m going to rip your dick off and shove it straight down your motherfucking throat.”

Shane’s lips twisted as if he tasted something bitter. “You been around for…what, couple months? And suddenly you’re his fucking keeper? You think he’s yours? Your fuckin’…your ol’ lady, like you fuckin’ bikers say?”

“ _Yeah_ ,” Negan breathed as he rocked back on his heels slowly, his entire body in the emphasis. “He’s mine. You better get right with that, Shane. That man is fucking _mine_ , and I take fucking _excellent_ care of what’s mine. If that’s what _you_ had done,” Negan hissed, lips pulled back in a hateful sneer, “then maybe shit would’ve been different for you. Maybe you wouldn’t be pissing down my leg every fucking chance you get because I have him and you don’t. But you fucked that up, didn’t you?”

“Don’t need to stay that way,” Shane said acidly. “He can change his fuckin’ mind, can’t he? He can change his mind on you.”

“He can,” Negan agreed. “Sure. He can. But I wouldn’t hold your breath, Officer Shane, because blue ain’t your fuckin’ color.”

Shane scrubbed at the drying blood around his mouth with the back of his hand. “Fuck you,” he muttered. “Fuck you, man.”

“Fuck you, too,” Negan said pleasantly. “And remember what I said. Because Rick’s stomped through enough shit for a fucking lifetime, and I’m not gonna let him stomp through any more if I can fucking help it.”

Shane frowned at that, something flashing up in his eyes. “Well, you ain’t the only one looking out for him. I know I fucked up bad. That don’t mean I’m not looking out for him, too.”

Negan clicked his tongue. “Good,” he said sharply. “See? Now we’re on the same fucking page. Got this shit squared away, don’t we?”

Shane licked the last of the blood from the corner of his mouth. “Yeah,” he muttered.

Negan threw his arms out at that in theatrical delight, but the smile on his face was cold. “Good. That’s fucking good, Shane, because Rick doesn’t want us to fucking fight, so we’re not _gonna_ fucking fight. We’re gonna make him happy, right?”

Shane gestured towards his face with a scoff. “You not gonna tell him about this, then?”

“What, that little tap I gave you? I’m gonna tell him. He’s gonna be really fucking pissed, but I’m gonna explain that we had a little heart-to-heart afterwards, and now everything’s _square_. He’s gonna give me that fucking _look_ , and he’s probably going to keep giving me that look all day, but you know what? I think I’ll be out of the doghouse by bedtime.” It was on the tip of his tongue to go on, to really lay it on filthy and thick - _I’ll slide right into him, Shane, all the way up to my balls, and then I’m gonna fuck that tight ass and make him come and come and come around my dick until he can’t fucking take it anymore, and you’ll be the farthest thing from his mind from the minute I unzip._ He restrained himself for Rick’s sake, but it was a near thing.

It was like Shane heard everything he was fighting not to say, though. He glowered silently at Negan. “Fuck you,” he said one last time before he turned and stalked away towards his car.

“Fuck you, too,” Negan said to his retreating back.

—

The thought of sleeping never even entered Rick’s mind. He prowled the house like a sentry, over and over and over until he was sure he was wearing the carpet down beneath his feet. Every creak of the old house sounded ominous and deliberate tonight, and even though he _knew_ better, Rick found himself investigating every faint rustle that reached his ears.

He had the sense, at least, to leave his gun locked away in a drawer as it always was when he was home, but that was all the sense he could hold onto.

Every nerve in his body was screaming.

He walked to the kitchen for twelfth or thirteenth time. The sink kept dripping, no matter how brutally tight he twisted the knob. He stalked up to it quietly, as if some threat could be hiding inside, just out of his line of sight. A single bead of water clung to the spout, looking like a drop of blackest oil in the darkness. It elongated. Rick glared at it, pulse throbbing in his temples. When it fell to the sink, it sounded like canon-fire.

Every nerve in his body was screaming.

He felt like screaming, too.

—

Shane didn’t think he had _ever_ \- in the fifteen goddamn years they had been on the force - gotten to work before Rick. He stared at the empty chair across from his desk, jaw ticking. _Where the fuck are you, Rick?_ He drummed his fingers loudly on the desk in front of him, hating every lurch and roll his gut gave as the helpless dread swelled in him.

He shouldn’t have left him alone. That much felt obvious now. It was his own petty bullshit that had sent him out the door - he hadn’t wanted to see that smug bastard saunter back home, into _Rick’s_ home, like he owned the goddamn place. Like he owned the man inside.

It was the same stupid, jealous shit that had led him down so many wrong fucking turns with Rick. Too many wrong turns to ever get back to where he wanted to be, which was back in Rick’s kitchen, looking into the man’s weary blue eyes while he laid it out for him.

_You’re either here with me, or you’re not._

_Not,_ Shane thought bitterly. He had pissed all over the chance he had been offered there, a chance he had done nothing to deserve. He had been selfish and cruel, and by far the hardest part to face now was the fact that he was _still_ selfish and cruel, _still_ making shitty fucking decisions out of wounded pride. Still failing Rick, just about every chance he got.

That’s what pissed him the _fuck_ off, and that’s what made him hate the tattooed greaser the fucking most. Shane touched his bruised face, hissing in a pained, bitter breath. Every goddamn word the man had said last night was true. And if Shane had actually tried to fucking change in the wake of all the shit that had gone down between them, had actually tried to be better, he would back the fuck off and be happy for him. Be his fucking _friend_. Be a guy who wouldn’t walk out on him after casually tossing a firebomb into his life because he didn’t want to face the man who had what he wanted.

Rick’s chair was still empty.

 _Fuck this._ He sprang up, sending his own chair skittering back. He could feel eyes on him from around the station, and he didn’t care. He was just about to grab his keys and drive the squad car out to the house when Rick finally walked in.

Shane couldn’t say the sight relieved him much. His friend looked like something _pretending_ to be Rick Grimes. Something with sunken, pale skin, a bent back, and blankly staring eyes.

“What the fuck, Rick,” he demanded the moment his friend sat down, the words coming out far more aggressively than he had intended.

Rick blinked dully at him. It seemed he didn’t even have the strength to ask the question.

“You look like hell, man,” Shane went on, trying to soften his tone. “What the fuck happened?”

“Couldn’t sleep.” Rick peered at his face. “What happened to you?”

Shane shook his head, shaking off the question and feeling his cheek give an unpleasant throb at the reminder. “It ain’t just not sleepin’, Rick, come on. Don’t lie to me. You look spooked.”

Rick looked like he was going to deny it again - Shane knew that stubborn set of his lips well - but he suddenly sagged against the desk as if all of his strength had left him. He ran his hands over his face, the gesture heart-wrenchingly distressed. “He called me, Shane,” Rick said into his hands after a long, heavy silence. “He’s _been_ callin’ me. Yesterday was the first day I picked up - I didn’t know the number, so I thought it was…I thought it was…” He trailed off, and he lifted his face from his hands, eyes stark and staring. “How’d he know, Shane? How’d he…how’d he get the number? H-how does he…” He trailed off again, voice fading to nothing as his lips continued to move over silently babbled words.

Shane stared at him for a long moment. In that moment, he imagined himself with his hands wrapped around Blake’s throat, the man purple and gasping beneath him. _If only,_ he thought viciously. He marched around their desks to Rick’s side and gripped his arm. Rick flinched violently away from him, and that _stung_. “Come on, man,” he said, forcing that hurt away, forcing his voice to be low and gentle. “We gotta tell the sheriff. We’re gonna figure this shit out, okay? Come on, brother. Get up. We’re gonna be fine.”

Rick rose unsteadily, letting Shane lead him. Shane pushed the door to Sheriff Peletier’s office open unceremoniously with his foot, and the sheriff shot him a flat look from behind her stack of papers.

“Come in, Shane,” she said drily. Her pale blue eyes eyes shifted to Rick, and they immediately turned watchful and serious. “What-“

“Philip Blake is calling him on his damn cell.” He realized he was shouting for no good goddamn reason, voice ringing in the small office.

The sheriff pushed her stack of appears away and sat back, face registering her shock. “What? When did this happen?” Her eyes drifted back to Rick in concern, taking in his obvious distress.

Rick licked his lips. “Last night. But he’s been…been callin’ for months. Never picked up. Thought it was some…you know.”

The sheriff ran a hand through her cropped, silvery hair. “Sit down, Rick,” she said firmly.

Rick immediately sank into one of the metal folding chairs in front of her desk. Shane felt an unwanted prickle of pique at that - _teacher’s pet_. He supposed he was just jealous he couldn’t get Rick to heed him in that instinctual way. _Negan_ could, Shane thought bitterly. He had seen him do it with his own two eyes. He wrestled down the bubbling bile of jealousy.

“He has to be calling from the hospital,” she mused, “but write down that number. The biggest question is how he got yours.”

“I’ll find out when I question him,” Shane muttered darkly.

“ _I’ll_ question him,” the sheriff said sharply, “I’ll question him myself.” She looked at Rick again, eyes softening. “Phillip Blake can’t hurt you or your family, Rick. I swear to you. He’s never going to be a free man. _Never._ ” There was a cold steel in her eyes and voice that made the hairs at the back of Shane’s neck prickle.

 _Don’t fuck with this lady, son,_ he thought, and not for the first time.

Rick swallowed with an audible click and nodded jerkily. He pulled a pad and pen over and began to write a string of numbers out.

“Good,” the sheriff said softly, eyes scanning the page. “Now go home, Rick. You shouldn’t here today. Or tomorrow. We’ll talk about a leave.”

Rick started in his seat. “I don’t….I don’t need a leave, sheriff,” he protested.

“We’ll talk about it,” the sheriff said, and although her tone was gentle there was no mistaking the _I’ve-already-decided-so-don’t-make-a-damn-fuss_ undertone. “Go on.”

Shane was nearly out the door before the sheriff’s voice had him turning back.

“Did you deserve that?” she asked sternly, gesturing towards his face.

He ran a hand up the back of his head. “Yeah,” he said slowly, although it galled him to say it. “Yeah, I did.”

She nodded, frowning. “Try to stay out of trouble, Shane. That badge means something.”

Shane shuffled his feet, feeling like a scolded child. “I know that, sheriff,” he snapped irritably, rounding on his heel and striding away.

Back in the pen, Shane caught up with Rick and reached out, taking him almost gingerly by the elbow. He was gratified when Rick didn’t immediately flinch away again. “You should…” His mouth twisted sourly around the words he was trying to spit out. “You should call your…” - _leather daddy_ \- “fuckin’…you know. Boyfriend. He should- wait, shit, he know about the calls?”

Rick shifted uneasily on his feet. “He don’t. He was workin’ last night.”

Shane flung his head back in exasperation, fighting the urge to grab Rick by the shoulders and give him a hard shake. “You were alone all night? Boy, why didn’t you fuckin’ tell me you were gonna be? I woulda stayed, Rick!”

Rick lifted his weary gaze to his and held it wordlessly. His answer was in his eyes, and reproach landed in Shane’s heart like a dagger.

“You don’t trust me anymore,” Shane said slowly. “That’s about it, ain’t it? You really don’t.”

“Shane,” he sighed. It wasn’t a contradiction.

Shane rubbed his head, staring at the floor and trying to breathe through the ugly knot of pain in his chest. “I get it,” he forced out. “I do. I did that to us, brother.” He swallowed and forced himself to meet Rick’s eyes. “You need a ride home, man? I can do that.”

Rick was shaking his head, and Shane let out a heavy sigh.

“Come on, Rick. You know you ain’t in any shape to drive. Just let me bring you home.” _Just let me do this one fuckin’ thing,_ he pleaded silently. _Give me one fuckin’ thing that I can’t fuck up for you._

Rick lifted his big, sad blue eyes to him. “Yeah, okay,” he said quietly. “Okay, man. Thanks.”

It felt like a blessing, like a kind of _mercy_ , and Shane accepted it as such.

—

Negan was on his fourth cup of coffee. He knew it was probably a mistake - anything after three just made him jittery, and feeling jittery did nothing for his disposition. But he had to try something to keep him going: the garage had been doing steady business all day, and he had hardly slept a wink after he returned to his motel from the bar. He had pretty good idea about why that was. _Rick Rick Rick_ , with his strong limbs, soft skin, and those heart-wrenchingly beautiful eyes. The space between his arms had felt vast and empty without him there. _So fucking far gone. Worse than a goddamn teenager,_ he mocked himself, but he smiled wistfully into his coffee. He had been like that with Lucille, too.

A figure appeared at the entrance, silhouetted in the morning sun, and Negan groaned internally. He shouldn’t be annoyed that the garage was doing well, but the day had been relentless. He put his coffee down and braced himself, striding towards the front of the garage with a wide smile. It fell straight off his face as soon as he drew close enough to make out the identity of the figure standing with his arms tightly crossed.

“What the fuck do you want?” Negan asked coldly. He took in the evidence of their encounter last night, swelling purple-blue across Shane’s jaw, with no small amount of satisfaction.

Shane flushed angrily. “I’m here to tell you something important, prick,” he snapped, and then he seemed to catch himself, sucking in a heavy breath. “It’s Rick.”

Negan felt his irritation leave him in an instant. “What about Rick?” he questioned sharply. “Wait, why the hell isn’t he with you? _Is_ he with you? Is he here?” Negan shaded his eyes and began to step around Shane to scan the front of the garage when the other man made an exasperated noise.

“Jesus holy Christ, can you shut up for half a second? I’m fuckin’ tryin’ to _tell_ you.”

Negan twisted his head towards him, glaring impatiently.

“Rick ain’t here, man, he’s home. Sent home by the sheriff.” Shane’s voice had grown subdued, and now he hesitated. “You need to…you need to fucking go there.”

“Is he hurt?” Negan demanded, feeling coldness spread through him at the thought, but Shane was already shaking his head.

“Not now he isn’t, but…look, it’s a long-ass story, okay? You need to go there. He can’t be there alone, and he doesn’t want me there.” Shane swallowed hard, ducking his head, and Negan realized how much that admission had cost him. “Man,” he said thickly, “I thought you were fuckin’ goin’ home last night after I saw you at the bar. I didn’t think he was gonna be alone, otherwise I wouldn’t have fuckin’ left him.”

Negan stared at him, puzzled and angry. "Last night? What're you - " It dawned on him mid-sentence. “This is about what you told him,” he said slowly. “Official police business, right? Couldn't fucking say it in front of me? You fucking asshole,” he seethed, “I knew that was bullshit.”

“Wasn’t bullshit,” Shane muttered sullenly. “It _was_ police business, but…” Shane trailed off, and the corners of his mouth twisted sharply downwards into a grimace. It was an expression of raw and unfiltered grief, and Negan felt dread chilling the inside of this chest all over again. “It was a hell of a lot more than that, too. He ever tell you about Philip Blake? How he got shot?”

“Philip Blake?” Negan echoed blankly. “No, fuck no, Rick never wants to fucking talk about how he got shot.”

There was a mean satisfaction in Shane’s eyes at that, and Negan could practically _hear_ it - _you may be in his bed, but I still know things about him that you don’t. Deep, dark things._ Negan itched to put his fist right back in his face, but he forced the impulse down - he needed to focus on whatever the fuck was going on with Rick. If it was serious enough to get his asshole best friend to swallow his jealous hate and run down here to fetch him, it had to be pretty fucking serious.

“Okay, so who the fuck is Philip Blake?” Negan asked evenly.

“He’ll tell you,” Shane said quietly. “It’s a shitty story.” Shane hesitated again, hand creeping up to scrub at the back of his head. “He listens to you,” he said finally. “Tell him to…I don’t know…tell him to take it easy. He makes everything so goddamn hard. He needs…” Shane’s shoulders drooped as he trailed off.

“Yeah,” Negan said after a moment. “I know.” He left the other man standing there with his back slumped and his eyes downcast, not sparing another look.

—

Negan flew down the country roads, bike engine roaring in his ears. For the first time in a long time, he couldn’t enjoy any part of the ride.

Negan cast his memory back, months back, _miles_ back. Back to a motel across a garage in Virginia. _You took a fuckin’ bullet, Georgia?_

Rick had looked stricken then and every other time he tried to bring it up. _It’s a real long story_ was all he had ever said about it, and Negan had put his reticence down to the obvious - getting shot couldn’t have been a fucking picnic. But it had always seemed like there was something more. Something sinister and hushed - a secret.

Rick and his fucking _secrets_. He was a locked cask of them, and it wore at Negan’s pride.

He had been on the verge of pushing the matter so many times, but he had been pretty fucking successful at reining himself in. He was trying so goddamn hard to _not be a dick_. His possessive bullshit had gotten him in trouble with Lucille more times than he could count, and if he was really going to go all in with someone else after the fucked up way that he lost her, he was going to try to move on from those mistakes. But now Rick was in the middle of some kind of shit he was oblivious about, and he had to hear about it from fucking _Shane_ , of all people, and he was angry in a way he knew he had no real right to be.

He was angry the entire ride to the house. He was angry when he opened the front door, and he was angry when he rounded the corner to the living room.

The anger bled out of him the moment he caught sight of his lover, looking hollow-eyed and white as paper, perched uneasily on the edge of couch like he might take flight at any moment. If there was any remaining in him after that first look, it was squeezed right out of him when Rick began to shake as if he were cold the moment Negan’s arms went around him.

“Thought you were at work.” Rick sounded as dazed as he looked, and Negan’s heart throbbed with worry, aching right down to his ribs.

“Shane came to the garage,” he murmured, smoothing Rick’s hair back from his face. “Told me…well, he didn’t tell me much. Just that you were home because something went down at work. The hell is going on, baby? You look like you’ve seen a fucking ghost.”

Rick swallowed and buried his head in Negan’s shoulder, sliding his arms around his neck. “I heard one,” he said quietly, and the lapsed into silence.

Negan stroked gentle fingers through his hair for a few minutes. “You talkin’ about this Blake motherfucker?” His answer was in the way Rick’s entire body flinched at the name. “I’m gonna go make you a strong cup of coffee,” he said slowly, “and when I get back, you’re gonna tell me all about it.” He kissed the top of his head to soften the demand and tugged the knitted blanket off the back of the couch. He wrapped it snugly around Rick’s shoulders and nosed against where Rick’s face was pressed into his shoulder.

Rick lifted his head at the urging, and Negan stole a soft kiss. “I’ll tell you,” he said quietly. “Guess I gotta.”

_It’s not about “gotta,” Rick. You should tell me everything. You should trust me with all your shit. I fucking love you. I love you, baby, and you gotta let me fucking help you. How am I supposed to if I don’t know what the fuck is going on?_

Negan held all of that back with an effort. “I’ll be right back,” he said instead, maneuvering Rick to curl into the arm of the couch and tucking the blanket around his feet.

“Negan,” Rick said quietly.

He sat back, resting a hand on Rick’s ankle covered in the knitted warmth of the blanket. “What?”

“I’m real glad you’re here,” he said simply.

Negan crawled up along the couch to where Rick had pillowed his head on the arm rest. He stroked his cheek for a moment, scanning his eyes and hating the exhausted, broken expression they held. Everything inside of him screamed at him to fix it. He leaned in, pressing kiss after kiss to Rick’s full lips. Rick made a soft noise in his throat and reached for him, sliding a warm palm against his neck. Negan pulled back just enough to speak, the words forming directly against Rick’s inviting mouth. “I’ve got you, baby. You know that, don’t you?”

“Yeah,” Rick breathed softly, eyes fluttering shut. “I know it.”

It felt like it took ages to brew the damn coffee, and Negan found himself pacing over the the archway and surveying the living room every minute or so, as if to assure himself by the sight of Rick’s curly head that he was still where he should be. Something was very fucking wrong. He had never seen Rick like this - _shell-shocked_ , that was the word, something Bud would talk about from time to time when he yarned about his days as a jarhead. He was shell-shocked, and every time Negan had looked into his haunted eyes he felt the icy grip of dismay on his heart.

He nearly scalded himself in his haste to pour out the coffee. He hurried back out to the living room with the hot mugs, setting one down on the low coffee table and handing the other carefully over to Rick. He sat back beside him, draping a warm arm around his shoulders, and Rick immediately sagged against him with a sigh.

“Drink it, darlin’. It’ll buck you up a little,” Negan murmured, kissing into his hair.

Rick took a large swallow of the coffee. It had to have burned him a little, and Negan almost admonished him to _slow down, honey, or at least blow on it or something_ , but the man didn’t even flinch. “It was almost a year and a half after Lori died,” he said hoarsely, “that it happened.” He took another long swallow from his steaming cup. “I almost lost him,” he said, and the tears flooded his eyes in an instant, spilling over onto his cheeks. “I lost his mother, and then I almost lost him. My baby boy.”

Negan blinked at him, his mind was whirring and working, trying to make sense of that. He lifted a hand and brushed away the wetness on Rick’s face with his thumb. New tears slicked his face in the wake of the tender gesture. “Carl?” he asked softly, brow furrowed in confusion. “I thought this was about you getting shot, honey.”

Rick lifted solemn, sad eyes up. “It is,” he said, voice steady and calm despite the steady track of tears down his face. “It’s a real long story.”


	8. Through the Cold, Part II

The day Rick and Shane were sent to Philip Blake’s house was exactly 537 days after Lori died. Rick was keeping track. On the bad days, the days when the wound her death had left on his heart seemed to fester and ooze poison, he would sometimes find himself scribbling the day’s number over and over in his notepad. That’s what he was doing when Sheriff Peletier called them both into her office - scratching the numbers out in runny blue ink.

_537, 537, 537._

“Got a wellness check for you,” she said as they drew closer. It was clear from the grim set of her lips that she wasn’t holding out much hope that the object of the check would be well. “Come in and have a seat. I’ll brief you.”

“For a wellness check?” Shane groused. The sheriff shot a sharp glance over her shoulder at him, and he sucked his teeth and lowered his eyes sullenly.

“Philip Blake,” she began as she sat down behind her desk, “has been a bank clerk in town for the last fifteen years. His wife was killed five years ago in a car wreck, and Blake’s been raising their daughter alone ever since. Kid’s seven now. She fell off the monkey bars at recess two weeks ago and broke her leg. She’s been out from school since then. Blake told his co-workers about it. He asked a neighbor, Lilly Chambler, to look after his daughter while he was at work. Last day she sat for the kid was Friday. The Friday _before_ last Friday. Eleven days ago. Blake never showed up to work after that.”

“So?” Shane frowned. “He took off to look after the kid. Ain’t a police matter.”

The sheriff was shaking her head, and at that, her eyes frosted over. “It _is_ a police matter, Shane, and I’ll tell you why. Philip Blake has not called in to work to say he’s taking any time off to look after his kid, and according to his boss, that’s very unusual behavior. He’s always been a reliable employee. His daughter had a follow-up appointment yesterday for her leg - no one showed. He’s got more than a week’s worth of papers on his doorstep, and Philip Blake is a crossword junkie. His mailman says he’s done the daily crossword every morning since he and his wife first moved to town fifteen years ago.”

“Who called it in?” Rick asked. “The boss?”

“Actually, it was Chambler’s younger sister. Lilly Chamber has a daughter around Penny’s age. The girls played together, and it seems like Blake and Chambler were on their way to being an item. Chambler was worried when Blake wouldn’t return her calls or answer his door, so she called her sister. Girl’s in a police academy in Atlanta. She’s got instincts,” she added with a sharp look in Shane’s direction.

Shane’s expression soured further. “That’s all we got to go on? An overeager rookie’s instincts? So he’s been out of touch with his girlfriend. He’s probably duckin’ her because he’s on to the next chick.”

“Shane, I can’t tell if you’re just enjoying being an asshole or if you’re suddenly too stupid to tell that there’s a case here, but you need knock it off and get ready to do your job.”

“We’re heading out right now, sheriff,” Rick said hastily.

Shane got up, red-faced, and swept out of the room.

“You know him,” Rick said apologetically as he slid his chair back. “Likes to play devil’s advocate is all.”

“The devil doesn’t need an advocate, Rick,” the sheriff sighed. “He does fine on his own.”

“Guess that's right,” Rick assented. He touched the brim of his hat and left.

Shane was already behind the driver’s wheel of their cruiser. “He’s dead,” he said morosely as Rick settled beside him in the car. “Poor bastard’s probably face down in a bowl of cereal. Had himself a coronary.”

“I thought he was just ‘on to the next chick'?"

“Shit, man, that’s just what I _wish_ was true. I know this shit don’t look good.”

“No, it don’t,” Rick sighed.

“And that kid, shit. She’s probably scared out of her mind. Hidin’ out. I hate these fuckin’ calls, man, I don’t want to see no kid that’s been watchin’ her daddy rot.”

Rick looked down at his lap. “Then what’s with you, Shane?” he asked softly. “Why’d you push back so hard? You been pushin’ back on everything lately. Mouthin’ off to the sheriff? You know that won’t fly forever.”

A muscle in Shane’s jaw twitched. “You’re both too damn sensitive,” he snapped. “What, askin’ a few questions is a fuckin’ crime? Are we the fuckin’ police or what? Don’t we ask questions?”

Rick shrugged, opting to say nothing.

Shane was more prickly and combative than he had ever been, and Rick could trace the start of it to all that shit that happened after the funeral. A rift had opened up between them, and Shane rejected any attempts to probe it. Sometimes he was all right - he teased and charmed and acted like his old self, like the boy that had been his best friend for life. But too often he met everyone who got too close with bared teeth and ill-tempered barking. As if _he_ were the one with the grievance. As if _he_ were the one who was trying to hold the pieces of himself together. Trying to continue to work and to live and to raise two children in spite of the yawning sinkhole that had opened up in his life the moment Lori died.

It took all of Rick's energy to not slip and fall right into that dark pit that always seemed one wrong-footed step away. He couldn’t hold onto his anger at Shane, and he couldn’t force the man to hash this all out between them, either - both of those things took _energy_ , and Rick was drained.

So he was silent, and Shane was silent, and they drove silently to the home of Philip and Penny Blake.

There was a grey Chevrolet parked in the driveway, and Shane nosed the cruiser in behind it. He jumped out of the car before Rick had the chance to unbuckle his seat belt, striding right across the lawn to the front door and kicking at the stack of newspapers piled there. He began to bang on the door with a closed fist. “ _Police_!” he brayed. He glanced over his shoulder at Rick as he approached, shrugging before he kicked in the door with a grunt.

It hit them both as soon as they crossed the threshold - the heavy, putrid smell of decaying flesh. They immediately looked to each other in grim dismay.

“Shit,” Shane muttered, “I really wanted to be fucking wrong about this one.”

Rick drew his gun, lips set in a hard line, and motioned to the stairs. They mounted them slowly, alert to any signs of life. At the landing, Shane inclined his head and peeled off to the right. Rick went left, checking each door he reached. A bathroom. A linen closet. The further he went down the hallway, the stronger the stench became, and his stomach soured in dread. There was only one door left, all the way at the end of the hall, and it was painted a soft, pale pink. He nudged it open gently with his foot.

The stench was _unbearable_ , and the source was obvious.

She could have been asleep in her bed, if it weren’t for her face. It was grey-blue and grotesquely bloated.

Horror froze him where he stood, and for a moment, all he could think of was Judith swaddled up and lying in her crib. He tried to shove the image away, but his own mind was cruel, and he was too distracted by his own internal struggle to notice the man sitting slumped to the floor at the far wall until he spoke.

“You need to go. Penny can’t have any visitors today. She needs to rest.”

Rick swung his gun warily towards the speaker.

He was middle-aged and good-looking in a quiet, unfussy kind of way. The clothes he was wearing were rumpled and stained as if he had been living in them for a long time.

“Mr. Blake?” Rick asked softly.

The man lifted his bleary eyes up. “You’ll have to come back another time. She’s not well.”

Rick felt his heart sink down to his stomach. He put his gun away, keeping his voice low and calm. “What happened here, Mr. Blake?”

The man shook his head back and forth. “She fell. She fell at school. She’s not well. You need to go. She can’t have visitors today. She needs to rest.”

Rick walked over to the man and sank down on his haunches. “Mr. Blake,” he said slowly and very, very softly, “I’m so sorry. She’s dead.”

In retrospect, he had already made several mistakes. He holstered his gun too early. He got too close. He crouched down in front of him, putting himself in a vulnerable position. He let his guard down completely. He wasn’t working the scene like a cop at all; he was working it like a father. A father facing another father’s grief. He understood that, but it didn’t stop him from later reproaching himself for it. In his own guilty mind, he saw the birth of everything that happened after in that very moment that he got too close to Philip Blake.

The man was staring at him, bewildered. “What did you say?” he asked, and the dazed voice he had been speaking in hardened suddenly into the cold, clipped tone of someone about to make a service employee’s life hell. “Excuse me, what did you just say?” The strange offense the man had taken should have been a warning, but Rick overlooked it. Another mistake.

“She’s dead, Mr. Blake,” Rick repeated gently.

The transformation was as sudden as it was terrifying. The man’s entire face twisted and morphed into a mask of sheer rage, making him look less than human. He uttered a harsh shriek - something between the roar of an animal in pain and a shrill wail of grief - and launched himself at Rick, fists swinging wildly. “How dare you?” he howled. “How fucking dare you?!”

“Stop,” Rick cried, trying to subdue the writhing, screaming man, “stop it! Calm down! Just-” An elbow caught him in the stomach, and the air rushed out of him in a pained wheeze. Blows rained down on his face and chest. He heard footsteps slamming down the hall, and he managed to buck his hips and roll them both over until he was pinning the man. “Cuffs,” he grunted to Shane as he rushed in.

Blake fought them like an alligator, but between the two of them, they managed to cuff his hands behind his back. Rick wiped the sweat off his brow and glanced over at Shane. He was sitting back on his heels and staring at the little body lying under the pink coverlet with a white, drawn face.

“You sick sonovabitch,” he whispered. “You sick fucking sonovabitch.”

The man lying face down on the floor was laughing. It was a wheezing, high-pitched, mirthless sound that made Rick’s hair stand up. Blake arched up off the floor, looking like a rattlesnake poised to strike, and spat on Shane.

The next several minutes were another blur of swinging fists, but instead of wrestling Blake, he was wrestling Shane. “Stop! Shane! Damnit, Shane!” A fist drove into his cheek, and he tasted blood. Blake was laughing again, its unpleasant sound the accompaniment to the thud of Shane’s blow connecting. The flailing limbs stopped flailing as Rick staggered back and raised a hand to his face, trying to staunch the flow of blood from his cut lip.

“Rick,” Shane said, sounding a little dazed. “Oh, shit. Rick. I’m so fucking sorry. I didn’t mean to. I-I was-”

“It’s fine,” Rick rasped, still angled warily between Shane and Blake. “Just get our back-up. And get crime scene here.”

Shane stared at him for a moment longer before nodding jerkily and pulling his radio from his belt.

Rick turned to look down at Blake, hand falling away from his mouth. “I’m sorry,” he said hoarsely, “I’m so sorry for your loss. It’s gonna be…it’s gonna be all right. We’ll figure out what happened, and…”

“I’ll get even,” Blake interrupted matter-of-factly. His pale blue eyes flicked up, and they traced over Rick’s face slowly, as if committing every square centimeter to memory. “Everything was fine until you came. Penny was fine. But I’ll get even. You won’t get away with murder, you pig.”

 _Murder?_ Rick thought blankly. Before he could answer, Shane was standing in the doorway.

“Back up’s on the way,” he muttered. His eyes slid away from Rick’s face, and Rick was suddenly aware of the throbbing there. The blows that Blake had landed had been too erratic to do any real harm, but Shane’s hit was the real goddamned deal. It had to be swelling up into a good bruise by now, and he resisted the urge to reach up and prod the injury.

“Let’s get him out of here,” Rick said quietly, nodding towards Blake. The smell was nauseating, and he was beginning to feel dizzy.

Shane walked over and grasped one of the man’s arms near his shoulder as Rick took the other, more carefully. They lifted him to his feet. “Did you kill her?” Shane barked, tossing a head over his shoulder towards the grotesque tableau behind them.

“No,” Blake said smoothly, looking utterly unruffled. “You did.”

“Stop, Shane,” Rick said quietly. “It’s not the time. Let’s just get him outside.” He walked him gently towards the door, leaving Shane behind them.

The man turned his head towards Rick and smiled, his pale eyes crinkling up at the corners in a friendly kind of way. “You got kids, officer?”

Rick’s skin crawled as if the man’s words were so many vermin, unleashed and skittering all over him.

—

“‘Improper disposal of a body’? It’s fucking bullshit,” Shane snarled, stirring his coffee so aggressively that a little splashed out onto his hand. He hissed as it made contact, swearing viciously under his breath. They were all standing around the coffee pot - Shane, Rick, Tyreese, and Leon - trying to enjoy a break during the after-lunch lull. At least, Rick thought he might try and enjoy a break, but then they got the news about the charges being brought in the Blake case, and Shane had erupted.

“Why? It’s all he did, when it comes down to it,” Rick said wearily. “It ain’t like he killed her. The coroner said it was that…that fat embolism thing.”

It had been utterly surreal to hear it - _a little bit of fat from the broken bone got into her blood, and it killed her. It’s called a fat embolism, and it’s a very, very rare complication of orthopedic trauma._

_A little bit of the fluid from around the baby got into her blood, Mr. Grimes. It’s called an amniotic fluid embolism, and it’s a very, very rare complication of childbirth._

He had to excuse himself from the coroner’s office to breathe in great gulps of air outside until his heart stopped pounding and his eyes stopped burning.

“It’s all he did?” Shane repeated incredulously. “It’s all he did? He didn’t bang out a drum solo on your damn face, Rick?”

Rick stared at him, eyes widening at the audacity. The worst blow he had sustained to his face that day had not been from Philip Blake.

Shane turned brick-red, but he went on. “It’s fucking bullshit,” he repeated stubbornly. “I can’t fuckin’ believe the prosecutor dropped the assault charge just because you sweet-talked her into it. He’ll be out on bail before you can say ‘zippity-fuckin’-do-dah.’”

“I didn’t sweet-talk anyone, Shane. I just gave her the facts of the case. His daughter died in her sleep. In her own goddamn bed. He found her there. Can you imagine that? Why the hell would you want that guy to go to prison? For what? Not accepting it? Acting crazy when we found ‘im?” Rick heard his voice begin to grow unsteady, and he shut his mouth with a click, cursing himself.

He felt Tyreese’s large, warm hand land on his shoulder and squeeze. He chanced a look up, and the sight of the gentle sympathy in his friend’s warm eyes very nearly brought a wave of tears to his own.

“It’s a horrible thing to happen to a parent,” Tyreese said solemnly. “And a horrible thing to see on the job. You’re a good man, Rick, for putting in a word for the guy.”

“No good deed goes unpunished,” Leon crowed, and he snickered at his own wit. Three pairs of eyes landed on him. “What?” he asked, flushing. “My grandmama used to say that all the time.”

—

The rest of that week and the next passed uneventfully around the station. The only thing Rick had to look forward to to break the monotony was the fact that this Friday was his day to leave early, and he did look forward to that. He loved the days when he was able to get down to the school and pick Carl up before he got on the bus. Those car rides home were just about the only alone time they had together these days, and Rick craved them. His son seemed to be taller every time Rick saw him, impossible as that was, and Rick knew the day when he would begin to pull away from him was approaching. It would be normal, natural, and Rick dreaded it. He dreaded it all the more after losing Lori, but he knew it was coming all the same. He wanted to hang onto the moments that he still had with Carl before the adolescence settled in and reforged their relationship, and that was why he was at the school by 4:25PM on a Friday, just before the last class of the day was letting out. Other parents had filled the parking lot, so of course he hadn’t noticed the grey Chevrolet parked in a far corner.

It had been a cold, long, and dreary winter, but it was finally giving way to spring. Rick leaned against his car as he stood waiting, taking a moment to tip his head back, close his eyes, and bask in the late afternoon sun.

“Dad!” Carl was walking towards him, backpack slung over one shoulder.

Rick raised a hand, smiling, and suddenly there was a body blocking his view of his son and throwing a cold shadow over the warmth he had been standing in.

“Why should you have what I don’t?” Philip Blake asked, and his tone was so disarmingly pleasant that Rick didn’t immediately register the danger. Then Blake’s hand moved in his pocket, and Rick flung himself forward, past Blake and in front of his son, arms outstretched as if to embrace him. He saw Carl’s eyes widen in surprise, and then he heard the shots.

He wasn’t sure how many shots rang out, because the pain eclipsed everything. The universe began and ended in it, and it reduced him to rubble. He heard a buzzing like summer cicadas, and for a moment the noise brought him back in time. It brought him all the way back to the lake he and Lori used to sit by while the cicadas droned and the sun warmed them both until they were drowsy and drunk on the heat and on the lazy, sweet summer day itself. It hurt him to struggle away from that memory, but he had to, because of…

_Carl?_

The buzzing around him became screaming, an absolute cacophony of it.

_Carl?_

His vision wouldn’t clear. It was runny and dim, like a wet oil painting done in dusky, poorly contrasting hues.

_Carl?_

He focused with a mighty effort, and he saw him.

Carl was on his back on the hot pavement, half of his face white as chalk and the other soaked with gore from the gaping hole where his eye - blue like his mother’s, blue as lake water in the summer sunshine - had been. It was the last thing he saw before it all went dark, as if a higher power took pity on him and lowered the curtain over the stage that the latest tragedy of his disintegrating life had just played out on.

—

Shane was halfway to Dale’s when the call came over the police scanner. He never used to the listen to the scanner after he was off for the day - his old man had done that shit. Taken his work home with him and let it take over his entire life, and Shane’s life by extension. He had always told himself that he would never let the job swallow him up like that but these days, he was getting to understand his old man better. He had been a mean old son of a bitch, and he had collected regrets like bottle caps. You needed something to drown out the noise of all those regrets.

Shane got it now.

What he heard the dispatcher say put a chill all the way down his damn spine.

“Shots fired at King County High School. All units respond.“

Shane braked hard, and car horns screeched behind him in protest. He swung the car around in hard circle, shooting straight into the opposite lane and merging haphazardly into the traffic flowing in the other direction. A few cars veered away nervously as he roared down the road, weaving from lane to lane. _Holy shit,_ he thought, mouth dry and heart in his throat. _The fucking school. Hope Rick got Carl out of there already._

“Suspect middle-aged, brown hair, wearing a dark green sweater. Driving a grey Chevrolet, license plate-“

 _No._ He slammed his foot on the accelerator. _No. Fucking can’t be. It can't fucking-  
_

The radio crackled to life again, before Shane could even finish that thought. The dispatcher's voice was louder, a subtle note of panic bleeding through the clipped, professional tone. “Two victims down at King County High School. All units respond. Officer down at King County High School. Officer-“

Everything went white, hot, and blank, and Shane never did remember the rest of the drive to the school. They were loading them into the waiting ambulances when he got there. He charged straight through the crowd, shouldering people aside hard. Someone tried to hold him back, and he threw them off with a curse. “Fuck you, that’s my fucking partner! That’s my - what the fuck happened? What happened?” He saw Carl’s feet as they closed the doors to one ambulance, and he whirled around, searching wildly for Rick. His entire body throbbed in time with his heart when he saw him, white as milk and wrapped in a bloody sheet, his face obscured by an oxygen mask. Paramedics knelt over him, strapping him into a stretcher with lightning-quick hands. The other ambulance peeled away with a shrill wail.

“- shot him,” someone was screaming in his ear. “He came out of nowhere, and -“

“- got in his car, and he -“

“- the kid, he pointed the gun right -“

They loaded Rick into the back of the remaining ambulance, and the flashing lights turned him red and blue and red and blue and -

The doors slamming shut brought him back to himself, and he whirled on one of the men in uniform next to him. A firefighter.

“Which way did he fucking go?!” he screamed, and he could see the spittle fly from his own lips.

The man just shook his head, face drawn. “Turned left and tore down the street, they said. Hey, man, you should -“

Shane charged back in his car, and it took him several tries to put the keys in the ignition with his shaking hand. He screamed curses every time the key slid past its target, and his throat ached. The car finally roared to life beneath him, and he shot out of the parking lot, turned left, and tore down the street. He was only a few miles down the road before the scanner crackled to life again, and he seized up in dread.

“Officer down at the intersection of Main and Elm. Repeat-“

 _Is this real?_ Shane thought dazedly. _Can’t be fuckin’ real._

He turned his car towards Main. He was driving straight towards a yellow light, and he floored it to shoot through the intersection just after the light turned red. He heard the screech of tires as cars slammed their brakes to avoid plowing straight into him, and he caught a glimpse of one driver’s shocked face as he tore across her lane. He saw the cruiser as soon as he turned the next corner, and he slammed his breaks to screech in behind it, tires bumping up onto the sidewalk.

Leon was pacing up and down the middle of the street like a madman, screaming into his radio. “Where are you guys?! Where’s my goddamn ambulance? I need a goddamn ambulance!” He almost dropped the radio when he saw Shane, mouth falling open. “Shane,” he wailed, “I need a goddamn ambulance man, you tell them to send a goddamn ambulance -“

Shane brushed straight past him and stepped around the cruiser.

Tyreese was long past needing a goddamn ambulance. The bullet hole was right in the center of his forehead. It hadn’t even bled much. It just looked burned around the edges. The rest of his face was intact, and it was as if he had just dozed off on his back in the middle of the road. Or that's what it would have seemed like, if it weren’t for the sticky red puddle that had spread behind his head like a grisly halo.

Leon was sobbing behind him, so loud and hard that he sounded like a braying donkey. “Why’s it takin’ so long to send the ambulance, man?” The words were hardly intelligible through his tears.

“Leon!” The sheriff’s voice crackled over the radio. “Leon, do you copy?”

Shane strode over and snatched the radio from the weeping man. “He’s here, sheriff. I’m here. Tyreese is dead. Which way did he go?”

“Don’t even think about it, Shane. Stay where you are and secure the scene. Back up is arriving to your location.”

“Which way did he go, sheriff?”

“State police are on Blake. Secure the scene. He hit a pedestrian a couple blocks over from your location. I need you to run point on both crime scenes until we can get more hands on deck.”

“ _Which way did he fucking go?!“_ Shane screamed into the radio.

There was a breathless silence before the receiver in his hand erupted. “You stay where you fucking are and do what I fucking tell you! That’s an order, officer! You’re not gonna act like a fucking idiot and add to the body count today, not on my goddamn watch! Do your fucking job, or I will gut you the next time I lay eyes on you, you arrogant piece of shit!”

The words hit him like a slap to the face, clearing his head a little. He stared at the receiver blankly for a moment before he swallowed hard. His throat felt torn from all the screaming he had been doing, and he swallowed again, flinching at the pain.

“Do you copy, officer?” The sheriff’s voice had softened, but it was still steel at its core.

“Copy,” he rasped into the receiver.

Leon was sitting in the middle of the road, head in his hands, sobbing and moaning quietly. Shane slowly eased himself down to sit beside him.

Leon lifted his smeared, wet face up and fixed his plaintive eyes on Shane’s. “Are you gonna get them to send the ambulance?” he asked tremulously.

Rick would know just what to say if he were here, but he wasn’t. He was in the back of an ambulance, wrapped in a bloody sheet with a mask strapped to his face.

 _Just try,_ Shane told himself. _Pull it the fuck together, and try to do what he would do if it were him._

“Yeah, man.” Every word hurt his raw throat. “Sure. I’ve got it now. You did good.”

—

“He rolled his car on the interstate while the state police were chasing him. They had to cut him out, but he wasn’t hurt badly. Just scratched up. The woman he hit with his car died. I knew her and her husband. Their son Duane was in Carl’s class. She was the second person he killed on his way out of town, after Tyreese.” Rick had his cheek pillowed on Negan’s shoulder. He was curled up on his chest, in his arms, and he was surprised to find that he felt warm and safe despite his journey back into that dark day. Even his tears had dried up. “When Blake woke up, he started talking about how my son had to die because I had taken his daughter away from him. He was out of his mind. He had been plannin’ it since the day we found them in his house, just like he told me. Plannin’ to get even. It was like he didn’t understand that his little girl was dead before we got there. I don’t know if he understands it even today. Judge said he wasn’t fit for trial the way he was and sent him to a hospital. That’s where he’s been since it all happened.”

Negan was rubbing his back gently. He had been silent and attentive throughout the entire story, and now he blew out a long, slow breath. “Jesus fucking Christ, Rick,” he said under his breath. His hand wandered over the spot behind his shoulder where his scars were, his touch soft. “What you fucking went through.” He pressed his lips to the top of his head in a slow, loving kiss, and Rick let his eyes drift shut. “How long were you and Carl in the hospital?”

“Carl was…when I saw him, with his face all bloody and t-that… _hole_ in his head, I thought he was dead. But the bullet that hit him only grazed him. I guess since it went through me first, the trajectory was off. It destroyed his eye, but it wasn’t what it…what it looked like.” Rick felt his stomach grow cold and leaden at the memory, and he swallowed hard. Negan’s hand came up to rest on the back of his neck, warm and steadying. “They had to do surgery to clean it up, but he was out in a couple days.”

“What about you, honey?”

“I, uh…I was in a coma for a little while.” He felt Negan jerk in surprise beneath him, and he flushed. “Couple weeks. They had to pull a few bullets out of me, and I guess I lost a lot of blood.”

“A coma,” Negan echoed incredulously. “A fucking coma.” He stroked his fingers through Rick’s hair as if to soothe away the horrible memories, and Rick let out a soft sigh as he relaxed against the warm body beneath him.

“I was wild when I woke up. Last thing I remembered was Carl. I ripped out all my lines, crawled out of bed, and just staggered around the hallways like a…I don’t know what. Felt like a horror movie. Had to get tackled by a team of nurses. Next time I woke up, lucky that Maggie was there. She told me everything before I could give an encore performance.”

“Papa bear, huh? Still rampaging after a couple bullets? Shit, Rick.”

Rick shook his head ruefully. “Couldn’t keep my head, and I ended up hurting myself again. Something started up bleeding on the inside, and they had to go back in and do whatever it is they do. I was on bed rest for a long time after that. Drove me crazy having to keep off my feet.”

“Your kids were up with their grandparents this summer,” Negan said slowly, “that’s what you said when we met. That’s why you were up in Virginia, to pick ‘em up. I always figured they were just visiting, but…”

“Yeah, it took a little while for me to get strong enough to come home,” Rick whispered. “That’s why Lori’s parents were taking care of ‘em. The kids were out on the Greene farm while I was in the coma, and honestly I wanted them to stay there, but Lori’s parents came down and kicked up kind of a fuss. They’re not bad people. They love the kids. But Lori’s mother married into money, and she got to looking down on the Greenes, even though they were her own blood. They had no use at all for me. At least the Greenes own their farm. My family tree is full of sharecroppers.”

“They sound like complete fucking choads,” Negan muttered, and he reached down to gently tip Rick’s face up towards his. “So all this shit happened, and you just picked up the pieces and kept going? Christ, Rick. I’ve never met someone who handled their shit like you. You’re fucking indestructible.”

Rick gave a soft, sad chuckle. “I don’t feel indestructible, Negan. I’m…fuckin’ scared right now. Really fuckin’ scared, even though I know it don’t make any sense. Philip Blake is exactly where he has been since all this happened - a locked hospital. But you don’t know how hard it was not to go get the kids and barricade us all in the house today, like he’s gonna kick in the door any second. It’s like he’s not a real person to me anymore - he’s a _nightmare_. The kind of nightmare you start havin’ when you become a parent, you know? It’s all about the threat that you really can’t see, even though you know it’s there. The stuff that’s all around you, hidin’ in plain sight. People who snatch kids up off the street, the friend with their grandma’s pills, someone drunk on the road when your kid is riding with friends. No faces, no specifics, just… _danger_. This guy…he’s like all of those things, but with a face on him. He came out of nowhere, with no warning, for no good reason, and nearly killed him. It was dumb luck that he didn’t. I don’t pick Carl up from school every day. If I hadn’t been there…” Rick swallowed hard, feeling panic searing his edges at the mere thought. “Even with him locked up, it’s like I can’t shake it. That feeling that I can’t really protect him. Or Judith. It scares me, but at the same time, I know I can’t let them see me scared. If I’m scared, how are they supposed to feel? I’m their father.”

“Carl’s a smart kid, Rick. I think if you talked this shit out with him, he’d get it. You know?”

“I don’t want him to get it,” Rick whispered. “I want him to just be a kid. I want him to forget all of it. He can’t, though. Of course he can’t. It’s there with him every time he looks in the mirror.” Rick pulled himself up a little on his forearms so that he could gaze into Negan’s eyes. “I don’t want to tell him tonight. About the trial. I just…I wanna wait until tomorrow.”

“It’s your call, Rick,” Negan murmured, lifting a hand to his cheek. “Whatever you want. I’ll follow your lead. Okay?”

Rick turned his head and kissed his palm. “I…feel better,” he confessed. “After tellin’ you about it. You know? The town, we…it’s like we try and pretend it all never happened. Makes sense. It’s the worst goddamn thing that’s happened here in a long time, but I never got to pretend it never happened, because I was one of the people it happened to. But it was easier than I thought. Tellin’ the story.”

“Talking about the bad shit gets easier every time you do it,” Negan murmured. “I wish I had fucking figured that one out a little earlier, myself.”

Rick tilted his head at him. “Lucille?” he ventured softly.

Negan scratched his scalp lightly, and Rick shivered at the warm tingle that spread through him from his lover’s fingertips. “Lucille,” he agreed. “But this isn’t about my shit, baby. Not tonight. What do you need me to do?”

Rick smiled faintly. “You’re doin’ it, honey.” He laid his head back down on his chest and closed his eyes. “Kids’ll be home soon. Can we just stay like this for a while?”

Negan stroked a hand through his hair and slowly down the length of his spine. “Like I said, baby. Whatever you want.”

Rick dozed in his arms as Negan petted him, his fingers wandering every so often to the back of his shoulder.

_You took a fuckin’ bullet, Georgia?_

He should have put it together. The two things Rick always got the most squirrelly about were his scars and -

_How’d he lose the eye?_

He should have realized there was a connection, with the way the man grew quiet, pale, and mournful every time he prodded at the edges of it. Now he finally knew the truth, and as fucking horrible as it was, there was a part of him that was relieved to finally have a full accounting of the monsters in Rick’s closet.

Negan craned his neck to kiss the top of Rick’s head, and he gave a sleepy rumble. “It’s okay, baby,” he murmured, more to himself than to the sleeping man in his arms, “you’re gonna be okay. I know you don’t fucking _feel_ safe, but you are.”

 _As safe as anyone ever is,_ a bitter voice inside him whispered as Lucille rose to his mind’s eye. Lucille, who had been cut down by their own version of Philip fucking Blake: a threat that neither of them could see, never could have predicted.

 _Stop,_ he ordered himself. _Going there isn't gonna fucking help anything_. He tightened his arms around Rick. “We’re gonna be okay,” he insisted in a hoarse whisper. He was surprised when Rick drowsily turned his head to press a kiss against his chest.

“I know, honey,” Rick mumbled, and warmth surged through him, banishing the chill of his own painful memories.

—

Maggie came by later that evening. Her smile looked painted on, and she and Rick exchanged knowing, stricken looks over Carl’s head as he bent over his homework at the kitchen table.

“It always smells so good in here these days around dinner time,” she said, and her cheerful tone belied the anxious way she was switching her weight from foot to foot. “What’d you eat?”

“Bacon mac n’cheese, doll face,” Negan said, sweeping his arm towards the oven behind him with a flourish. ”Heaven in a pan. I didn’t put it away yet - you want me to fix you a bowl?”

“Not today,” Maggie answered softly, and her faintly red-rimmed eyes silently added _I’m not hungry_.

Rick hadn’t been hungry, either. He had mostly pushed the food around his plate, and he seemed to only put forkfuls in his mouth when Carl was looking. Carl himself had happily wolfed down a couple bowls like a proper teenager with a proper teenager appetite, and Negan had been pleased that his recipe had been a hit with the kid. It was harder than he thought it would be to play dumb about everything Rick had told him. He kept glancing over at Carl and feeling his heart ache with sorrow and pity in his chest. He had wondered about how he had lost his eye plenty of times, but he had never imagined that the truth could be so fucking harrowing.

“My car, uh…it’s been makin’ this noise,” Maggie said vaguely, one hand drifting up push her hair behind her ear. “I thought Rick could come out and take a quick look.”

If the whole situation hadn’t been so goddamn grim, Negan would have laughed. Maggie was about as good a liar as Rick was.

“Sure, but Negan should come with us. He’s the expert,” Rick said, pushing away from the counter he was leaning on. He and Maggie had another bout of silent communication with their eyes. “Can you keep an ear out for Judy, Carl?”

“Mm-hm,” the boy mumbled, deep in his geometry homework.

They had hardly cleared the porch when Maggie turned around and wrapped Rick in a tight hug.

“Where’d you hear it from?” Rick murmured quietly, bringing one hand up to rest in her hair. “Mayor’s office, I guess?”

“Yeah,” Maggie said, voice wavering. “You know. We got our ear to the ground. State prosecutor will be down by Monday.” She pulled back a little to look up at Rick, eyes solemn and glimmering with unshed tears. “They’re gonna ask you to testify.”

“I figured as much,” Rick said quietly. “What about Carl?”

Maggie shook her head. “I just don’t know. But the Mayor was real happy when she heard who they called in to prosecute. Said she’s the risin’ star of the state attorney’s office, and that we could trust her to know what she’s doin’.”

“I just hope it’s over with quick,” Rick said softly, turning his head and squinting into the distance, “but I know how these cases can get. Does Beth know yet?”

“I figured I’d tell her tomorrow,” Maggie sighed. “You know? Just give her today.” She turned to Negan. “Beth had a real hard time with all this. I mean, we all did, but it was different for her. She’s been best friends with Tyreese’s younger sister, Sasha, since those girls were in diapers. And she was at the school when it all happened. Heard the shots. She got these nightmares for months afterwards. It was awful.” Maggie rubbed a hand over her face. “I know one more day doesn’t mean much, but…”

“Nah, I get it,” Negan offered gently, putting a hand on her slumped shoulder and giving her a little squeeze. “Rick’s doing the same thing with Carl.” He cocked his head at them, mouth quirking up. “You two really are on a wavelength. Hard to believe you’re only related through marriage. You sure your family trees don’t have some tangled roots? I heard that happens down here.”

Maggie reached over and slugged him lightly in the arm. “That a redneck joke, Negan?”

He wrapped an arm around each of their waists and pulled them in. “Just a little one, sweetheart. For my favorite rednecks.”

They both tried to smile gamely up at him. They both failed.

“This shit is all gonna be in the rearview soon,” he said gently. “It is. I know I’m just a fuckin’ outsider on this, but trust me. ”

Maggie looked up at him in surprise. “You ain’t an outsider, Negan,” she said, reaching up to pat his cheek lightly. “You’re one of us now.”

He blinked down at the young woman, taken aback and touched.

“I’m glad Rick finally told you. He tries to keep everything to himself. I guess you figured that out by now.”

Rick’s head drooped a little, and Maggie reached out and touched his arm gently.

“I didn’t mean it like that, honey. I’m just sayin’ I’m glad someone’s lookin’ after you.”

“Don’t worry, cousin Maggie. I’m looking after him whether he likes it or not.”

He finally did get the smile he was angling for out of him then. It was small, but it was genuine.

“I like it,” Rick drawled softly in reply.

—

Rick kept leaving the protective circle of Negan’s arms that night to prowl the house. He bit his tongue at first, but when he began to shift and shimmy away from him for what felt like the fifth time, Negan grasped him with a sleepy noise of protest. He managed to pull the squirming man back against his chest, pressing his lips to the back of his neck.

“You getting up to check the windows and doors, the kids, or both?” he murmured.

“Both,” Rick sighed.

“Think there’s something you missed the last four times?”

“Negan,” Rick said quietly. He sounded so forlorn that it seared Negan’s heart in his chest, and he relaxed his grip with a sigh.

“Okay, okay. I’m coming with you this time.”

“You don’t have to, baby.”

Negan’s only response to that was another kiss to the back of his neck as he struggled out of their warm nest of blankets.

He followed Rick’s methodical trek around the house: to Carl and Judith’s rooms, to the second-floor windows, and finally down to the first floor. Rick turned to him slowly after tugging at the front door for a full minute, as if convinced it would give with a strong enough pull.

“I know I’m actin’ crazy,” he said softly, and his eyes drifted down to his feet. “I’m sorry. I don’t mean to drag you into it. Or to keep you up all night.”

Negan stepped forward, cupping his face gently and pressing his body, still warmed from sleep and the blanket cocoon he had just left, against Rick’s. He gazed into his tired, sad eyes for a moment before pressing a reverent kiss to his lips. “Shut the fuck up, Rick,” he said sweetly, and he was pleased when the other man gave a soft breath of a laugh in return. He smoothed his thumbs along his cheekbones. “You’re gonna be okay, baby. Don’t be so damn hard on yourself. And don’t fucking apologize to me.”

Rick slid his palms slowly over Negan’s waist to the small of his back, making him shiver. “Thank you,” he whispered.

“Don’t thank me,” Negan sighed. “Don’t.”

“Why not? You’ve been good to me. And the kids, too. I know that all of this is crazy. I wouldn’t blame you if…” he trailed off, and Negan was horrified to see his eyes grow wet. “Jesus,” Rick whispered, “I’m sorry. I just can’t get a hold of myself today.”

“What’d I just fucking tell you about apologizing?” Negan demanded softly.

Rick gave a faint smile. “To not fuckin’ do it.”

Negan chuckled weakly, and then shook his head hard. “Oh, fuck - I’m so fucking sorry,” he sighed, heedless of the hypocrisy. “It’s a terrible fucking time to spring this on you, but I can’t help myself. I’ve got it so fucking bad for you, Georgia. I love you.”

Rick’s eyes went wide as saucers in his face.

Negan moved a hand from his cheek to push through his curly hair. “It fucking kills me to see you like this. I know it doesn’t fucking change anything, but I gotta say it: I love you, I love you, I _love_ y-“

“I love you, too,” Rick interrupted a little breathlessly, “and it does…it has changed things. You. I mean-“ he faltered for a moment, as if struggling to put his thoughts together. “You bein’ here, Negan. Bein’ with me. You’re tellin’ me not to thank you, but I’m grateful. You don’t know what it’s meant, having someone to lean on. I haven’t had that. Not someone who was just for me, you know? Someone who was just _mine_. Not since I lost Lori. And I lost Shane, too, in a way. We never got back to the way we were before everything happened, and when all this went down, he just…it scared him too bad. He shut it all out.”

 _Fuck Shane straight to Saskatoon,_ Negan thought sourly. Aloud he said: “Baby, that’s exactly what I am. Just yours. All yours.”

Rick reached up and cupped the back of his neck, drawing him in for a slow, wet kiss. “I’ve known,” he said softly, almost dreamily. “I’ve known it for a while now. I was just scared to say it. I was afraid that maybe you- you wouldn’t…”

“Rick,” he murmured, “don’t be a goddamned idiot.” He sank to his knees and slid his arms around the other man’s waist, pressing gentle kisses to the exposed skin above the waistband of the worn sweatpants he was wearing. “Look at me,” he said, eyes glinting like a cat’s in the glow of the moonlight, “I’m on my fucking knees for you, darlin’. See?”

Rick buried his hands in Negan’s hair, carding through dark strands. “I can see that,” he replied, half-shy and half-saucy.

Later, as they were nestling back in under the covers, Negan murmured: “You’re gonna get up again. It’s okay.”

“I won’t,” Rick replied stubbornly.

He did.


	9. Through the Cold, Part III

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> GUYS YOU GUYS I AM SO SORRY. I know this took forever. It's the same old excuse: I'm just horrifically busy, and it's so hard to carve out time for fun and fanfiction. :( One more chapter after this is going to wrap this story up, I think, and I'm going to do my best to get it out more quickly because I have a little time to myself right now.

Negan drifted awake with the warm bundle of his lover in his arms and sprawled against his chest. He lay there contentedly for a while before shifting to kiss Rick’s disheveled curls. “Gonna get breakfast,” he murmured softly.

Rick gave a faint rumble, but otherwise he appeared sound asleep. There were deep shadows under his eyes.

Negan kissed him again, gently, before slipping out from beneath him. He pulled on his discarded tee shirt from yesterday and a pair of sweatpants before he made his way down to the kitchen. He already had a plan in mind for breakfast. Actually, he had purchased the ingredients a few days ago during a grocery run, and today called for some comfort food. Negan made himself busy, and soon he was steadily adding to a stack of warm, fragrant -

“Are those chocolate chip pancakes?”

Negan glanced over his shoulder and saw Carl standing in the archway to the kitchen, wearing an expression that could only be described as blissful. “You bet your ass, kid,” he laughed. “Chocolate chip pancakes. Your favorite.”

A shadow crossed Carl’s face. “Wait, what’s going on? Last night you made that special mac n’ cheese I like, and this morning you’re making my favorite breakfast?”

 _Shit._ Negan turned back to the pan. “Maybe I just like you, kid,” he said lightly.

“Something’s up,” Carl said, and the note of fear that had crept into his voice made Negan’s heart ache in his chest. “I knew something was going on with Dad last night. What is it? Is he sick or something?”

“No,” Negan snapped, surprising himself with his own vehemence. _Is he sick or something?_ That had set off a sudden flare of panic in him, and he chewed on his lip as he got a hold of himself. He set the pan carefully off the burner for a moment and turned around. “Your daddy’s fine, Carl. So are you. So’s your sister. You’re all fine, and you’re gonna stay that way. There’s just some shit that’s about to happen that he has to tell you about.”

Carl’s anxious expression eased somewhat, but his eyebrows furrowed a little at the end of that. “What? What’s gonna happen?”

“Kid, come on, don’t bust my balls. Telling you about it is up to him.”

As if on cue, there was the faint noise of someone approaching the upstairs landing. Negan turned back to the stove, reaching for the carton of eggs he had set aside. “Scrambled, right?” he called over his shoulder.

“Yeah,” Carl answered faintly, and Negan’s heart gave another painful, unhappy throb.

“You know how to make coffee, right? Give me a hand, kid,” Negan said quietly. “Come on.”

—

Rick lay suspended in that space between sleeping and waking. He had only vaguely been aware of Negan murmuring to him and kissing him before slipping out of his grasp. He had wanted to protest, but he had dozed off again almost immediately. Now he curled into the warmth that Negan had left behind, inhaling his scent from the rumpled sheets. His sleep had been troubled and broken last night, and his eyelids felt weighted with exhaustion. Voices from downstairs reached him faintly, very faintly. Negan and Carl, talking softly. Carl’s voice, so distant, but suddenly sharp and afraid.

Rick forced himself up and out of bed, his heart rate quickening in unease. He could hear Negan’s rumbling reply, and _he_ didn’t sound afraid.

 _It’s fine,_ he told himself as he struggled into a long-sleeve tee shirt. _He’s safe._

He wondered how long it would take for him to believe that again.

He hurried down the stairs, eager to see it for himself. When he appeared in the archway, Carl was just switching on the coffee maker. “Mornin’,” Rick said softly.

Carl wheeled around. “Dad, what’s going on?” he asked urgently.

Rick was caught off-guard for a moment, but only for a moment. He should have anticipated that Carl would sense that something was wrong. He was alert and intuitive in a way that should have belonged to an older version of himself - a version he might have had time to grow into leisurely if tragedy hadn’t accelerated his maturation.

Negan gave rueful laugh. “Come on, Carl. Let him get a cup of coffee in him at least.”

Rick pressed his palm against the archway and sighed heavily. “No, it’s all right. It’s time. Sit down, Carl.”

Negan listened to the scrape of chairs against the kitchen floor behind him. “Want me to get lost for awhile?” he asked as he tipped the freshly scrambled eggs into a serving bowl.

“No,” Rick said softly. “You’re a part of this, too, now.”

Negan turned, and his dark-fringed eyes were warm on him.

“Come sit,” Rick murmured, inclining his head towards the empty chair at the table.

Negan did, scratching at his sleep-mussed hair as he did so.

The apprehensive look Carl cast back and forth between them broke Rick’s heart. He drew a breath and steeled himself. “Philip Blake is going to trial, Carl,” Rick said, quietly but firmly. “It’ll probably last for a few weeks once it starts. There’ll be some attention on it in town. Probably be in the news, that kind of thing.”

“Holy _shit_ ,” Carl said wonderingly. “Really?”

“Really,” Rick said, folding his hands in front of him. “I don’t know…I don’t know how it’s gonna be. You might have to testify. It’s still up in the air.”

Carl drummed his fingers on the table, pressing his lips together for a long, silent moment. “It’s gonna suck,” he said finally, lifting his head to meet his father’s gaze. “But then it’ll be over, and he’ll go to jail.”

Rick swallowed thickly. “Yeah,” he said hoarsely, dropping his eyes. “There’s somethin’ else. You get any…strange calls? Numbers you don’t recognize?”

“No,” Carl said slowly. He was watching Rick with his head tilted, his remaining eye careful and appraising. After a moment, it widened. “He _called_ you?”

“But he didn’t call _you_ ,” Rick said, and the relief made him feel almost boneless.

Carl shook his head, sending the silky wave of his hair flying around his face. “That’s why you were so jumpy last night,” he said flatly, and his hand clenched into a fist. “That fucking _asshole_.”

Rick didn’t have the strength to scold him for the language.

“How long has it been happening?”

“A while,” Rick admitted, and he saw Negan startle in the seat beside them. “I didn’t know it was him,” he amended. “Just kept gettin’ calls from a number I didn’t recognize, and then I finally picked up the other night. By that time, I had a hunch.”

Carl sat back in his seat. “Why’d you wait to tell me?”

Rick gave a soft, sad huff of a laugh. “I didn’t want you to have to think about it. To be scared. And I guess I didn’t want it to be real.”

“I’m not afraid of that asshole, Dad,” Carl muttered.

Rick cocked his head to his shoulder, eyes sad and questioning.

“I _mean_ it. He’s locked up. He’s gonna stay locked up for a long time, probably forever. He can’t hurt us from where he is, and he doesn’t get to scare us, either. He can be a fucking creep and call us all he wants. Who _cares_. He can’t touch us.”

Rick stared at his son, transfixed. Carl’s expression had hardened into a determined mask that Rick had seen on Lori countless times. He was so like his mother. Looking into his single blue eye now, Rick saw her looking right back. He swallowed around the painful lump that rose in his throat.

A low chuckle erupted from Negan, slouching in his seat with his tattooed arms crossed across his broad chest. “Kid, you’re a fucking badass. You got the right attitude about this shit.”

Rick groaned, coming back to himself a little. “You need to watch your mouth. Both of you. We got a baby in the house, remember?”

“Sorry,” Carl and Negan said in sheepish unison.

Rick rubbed his mouth, hiding a smile. Relief was starting to trickle in slowly, but he couldn’t bring himself to trust it yet. “Carl, you sure you’re all right? I don’t want all this to hang over you. I want you to be a kid.”

Carl looked suddenly sad. “It doesn’t hang over _me_ , Dad. It hangs over you. Don’t freak out about this, okay? Please? I don’t want you to worry all the time.”

Rick felt his eyes grow wet as he looked into his son’s solemn face. He rose silently and held out his arms, and Carl folded into them, squeezing him tightly around his middle. “I don’t…worry _all_ the time,” Rick managed.

Carl laughed quietly, his face buried in his father’s shoulder. “I’ll go get Judith so we can eat. I want pancakes.” He stayed in the embrace a moment longer before slipping away, heading for the stairs.

“Hell of a kid you got, Officer Grimes.” Negan had risen from the table and was pressed up against him.

Rick turned and held him by the waist, fingers sliding under his shirt and caressing the warm skin they found.

Negan turned his face up with a gentle hand on his jaw and took his bottom lip into his mouth.

Rick sank against him, his entire body tingling at the soft attention. “Yeah,” he breathed against his lips. “Brave. Braver than I am.”

Negan made a low noise of disagreement. “No, baby - exactly as brave as you are.” He kissed him deeply before Rick had a chance to protest that.

Rick slid his arms around his waist and clung, letting himself get lost in the wet tangle of their tongues.

Negan kissed down the side of his face and jaw to nose at his neck. “Tell me you love me again,” he whispered against the soft bound of his pulse.

“I love you again,” Rick murmured, smiling.

Negan snorted and pinched his ass. “You sassin’ me, Georgia? When I’m trying to be a fucking romantic?”

“Just a little, Virginia,” Rick replied, and he wriggled away when Negan went for his ass with both hands. “Try to behave, honey. Kids’ll be down any minute.”

Carl did appear a few short minutes later, a sleepy-looking Judith on his hip. The table had been set, and Carl settled her into her highchair.

“Sophia and her mom are coming around later,” Carl said as he sat down. “We were supposed to get dropped off at the movies. Is that still cool?” he asked hesitantly, glancing up at his father.

Rick rubbed his mouth. “Yeah, of course,” he said. He heard the apprehension in his own voice. “Of course,” he repeated, trying for a more assured tone. All of a sudden, he couldn’t meet the twin sad gazes that his son and Negan were both casting at him, and he picked up his mug and went to pour himself some coffee.

It was strange how normal breakfast felt. Negan and Carl chatted casually about sports and music. Rick fed Judith scrambled eggs and the occasional tiny bite of gooey, chocolatey pancake. Everything felt warm and safe, and a perverse melancholy settled over Rick.

After being tormented with the memories of those awful days, somehow it was the present sweetness of his life that felt unreal. The shock, the grief, the agony - they had all found him again, like diresputable friends, and they were far from ready to leave. Blake had ripped his life open and exposed its vulnerability like so much trembling, wet viscera, and it was hard, so fucking _hard_ , to pretend he hadn’t seen how easily the everything could go to hell.

They passed the morning together, piling on the couch after breakfast to watch cartoons with Judith. Rick held her in his lap, and Negan and Carl sat on either side of him. It felt like the three of them were tethering him to the present moment, and there was a part of him that felt guilty for needing it so badly. Negan nestled against his side and stole an occasional kiss. Carl alternated between tapping on his phone and watching the animated pig that had Judith so utterly entranced.

 _Safe_ , Rick told himself. _We’re safe._

As if in answer, Negan’s arm settled around his shoulders, and Rick felt his eyes prickle a little.

He wondered, again, how long it would take to believe in that safety.

—

When the sheriff arrived later that morning, it was with a heaping tray of still-warm cookies.

“Chocolate chip,” Sophia announced brightly the moment Rick answered the door. “Mom’s secret recipe.”

“Wouldn’t be a secret if you would actually learn it instead of begging me to make them for you, kiddo,” the sheriff teased as she made her way over the landing.

“I do not beg, mother,” Sophia returned in a faux haughty tone before breaking out into a mischievous grin. “I helped by licking the bowl. And the spoon. And eating all the extra chocolate chips.”

Rick reached over and ruffled the girl’s blonde locks as she passed him, shutting and securely locking the door behind them. “It’s real nice of you both. Can I get you some coffee, sheriff?”

“I’d love some,” she replied, setting the tray down in the middle of the table. “Did you make chocolate chip pancakes this morning? Smells like it.”

“Hell of a nose,” a voice rumbled from behind them.

Rick stepped back and smiled as Negan strolled into the kitchen.

He casually reached out a fist to Sophia, who bumped it with her own. “Hey, slugger.”

“Hey,” Sophia chirped. “This is my mom. Mom, this is Negan.”

“Nice to meet you,” Negan said, extending a hand. “I’m the guy making Rick pancakes.” He punctuated that with a swift, suggestive wink.

“Negan,” Rick admonished, feeling his face already start to heat up a little.

The sheriff was smiling as she shook Negan’s hand, her pale blue eyes twinkling with a mischief that matched her daughter’s. “Nice to finally meet you, Negan. Carol Peletier. Try to call me Carol. I’ve begged Rick to stop calling me ‘sheriff’ when we’re not at work, but no luck.”

Rick gave a self-conscious laugh, pushing his chestnut curls back. “Just feels wrong, I guess.”

“I’m gonna run up and get Carl,” Sophia said, disappearing through the archway that led to the stairs.

Carol nodded to the tray of cookies. “You boys better grab a few cookies before the kids get down here.”

“They must fucking love you down at the station,” Negan said, picking up a cookie and taking a big bite. “Mmm, _fuck_ , that’s a kick-ass cookie,” he groaned.

Carol laughed at the vulgar appreciation. “Took me awhile before I started bringing cookies to the station. You know how it is. I’m the first woman this town’s ever had for a sheriff. I was afraid that people wouldn’t respect me if they saw me as…well, as a lady who made cookies. Then I learned the fine art of not giving a fuck. Now I bake my cookies when I want to bake my cookies, and if people don’t like it, they don’t have to eat them.”

“Who the hell wouldn’t want to eat your cookies?” Negan said in an insinuating murmur around a mouthful of chocolate chip cookie, shooting his brows up.

Rick pinched his arm hard, face flaming. “Jesus, Negan. I’m sorry, sheriff. He’s like that all the time.”

Negan flung an arm around Rick’s shoulder. “It’s true. Can’t take me fucking anywhere. I’m sorry, Sheriff Carol, I just meant to say you seem like a real bad-ass. Rick’s told me all about you and the kick-ass shit you’ve done.”

Carol shot Rick a warm smile. “Rick’s my best deputy.”

“What a coincidence,” Negan said with a sly grin, tugging Rick closer to him, “he’s _my_ best deputy, too.”

“ _Negan_ ,” Rick groaned in reprimand, unable to stop a half-pleased, half-embarrassed smile from dancing around his lips.

Carol laughed again, and then her face grew solemn. “I’ve got something to tell you before the kids get back here, Rick.”

Rick felt his heart skip in his chest. “Is it about-“

“Yeah,” she interrupted quietly. “State prosecutor’s coming down this Monday. I need you to come down to the courthouse and meet with her. You need to start going over your testimony, and she’ll have a lot to tell you about what to expect with all this.”

Rick nodded, feeling his throat tighten. “What about Carl?” he asked, glancing up towards the staircase. “Will he…?”

Carol was already shaking her head. “No,” she said, “I spoke to her earlier today. She said it’s not necessary for him to testify.”

Rick felt his legs get a little loose and shaky with the relief, and he was grateful for how Negan had him tucked securely against the solid anchor of his warm body. “That’s a relief,” he said hoarsely, eyes falling to the floor. “Thank you.”

“It’ll be over soon, Rick,” she said gently. “And then it’ll just be something terrible that happened a long time ago.”

Two pairs of footsteps pounded down the stairs, sounding like a pair of colts.

“All right,” Carl said, grinning as he jogged into the kitchen, “chocolate chip.”

Rick watched affectionately as he and Sophia dug into the cookies.

“Sophia tells me you played ball in high school, Negan,” Carol said. The air of solemnity the kitchen had held a moment ago lifted with the arrival of Sophia and Carl, but there was forced cheer to her voice all the same.

“Mm-hm. Trying to teach these kids to throw some decent pitches. Sophia’s got a hell of knuckleball, don’t you, kiddo?”

“It’s getting better,” Sophia said modestly, crunching away on a cookie.

“You know, the girl’s softball team is gonna need a new coach for the season,” Carol said. “Why don’t you look into it?”

Negan barked out a startled laugh. “Oh, I don’t know if I’m high school coach material, sheriff. You know? I’m not exactly PTA approved.”

Rick turned to look up at him, eyes wistful and soft. _Will you be here next season?_ he wanted to ask. He hated the way insecurity caught him unaware in moments like these, setting his chest aching and his heart fluttering unhappily. Negan had crossed state lines to be near him, had endeared himself to his family, had held him in his arms and told him that he loved him. He shouldn’t feel insecure about any of it, but there was a part of him, a part that had been battered by grief and disappointment, that was always bracing for the worst. “I guess you’d have to adjust your vocabulary,” he said with a faint smile, “but I’d approve.”

“Yeah?” Negan replied, eyes twinkling.

“That’d be cool,” Sophia piped up. “Our coach right now is 78. She’s been trying to retire for awhile. She’s pretty cool, but she ends up napping through most of practice.”

“What makes you think I wouldn’t?” Negan teased. “I need my beauty sleep, too. What movie are you guys gonna see?”

“We’re going to a Romero marathon,” Carl said, wiping his mouth on the back of his sleeve. “Night of the Living Dead, Dawn of the Dead, Day of the Dead.”

“Nice,” Negan said appreciatively.

“Let me pack up some cookies for the road,” Rick said.

“I already stashed a bunch in my purse,” Sophia said with a grin. “I have a thermos full of milk, too.”

“You kids really know how to party,” Negan said drily, and Sophia stuck her tongue out at him.

“I’ll be back by dinner time,” Carl said, his eye on his father. “Is that okay?”

Rick smiled in a way that he hoped was reassuring. “‘Course it is. You go have fun.”

“He’s worried about you,” Negan said softly after they had said their goodbyes and the door closed behind them. “He’s a damned good kid.”

“He is,” Rick agreed, leaning on the front door. “But he shouldn’t have to worry about me. I’m supposed to be-“

“Rick,” Negan admonished gently, “come on. Give yourself a fucking break for once. Please?”

Rick looked down, feeling his eyes sting and his throat tighten. Before he could muster up a reply, Negan was pressing him gently into the door, his large hands squeezing his waist.

“You need to go back to bed, baby,” he murmured. “Judy’s ready to go down for her nap, and you should catch a few more hours yourself. You didn’t sleep much last night, and you need to fucking rest.” He pushed a hand through his hair gently and pressed a kiss to his forehead.

Rick wound his arms around his waist and sighed, relaxing into the warm body bracing him up. “Are you coming back to bed with me?”

Negan leaned his head back a little, searching his face. “You want me to? I figured you might…you know. Might not be in the mood, with all this shit going on.”

Rick smiled weakly up at him. “I don’t know what kind of mood I’m in,” he said honestly, “but let’s see what happens.”

Negan took a yawning Judith from her play pen and carried her to her crib while Rick sat on the edge of their bed and slowly shed his clothes. He _was_ tired, he realized. His limbs felt heavy, and his eyes stung when he blinked. He was wearily kicking off his pants when Negan appeared in the doorway, watching him. He crawled back onto the bed and held out his arm invitingly, and Negan’s lips curved into a soft smile. He tugged off his teeshirt and slipped out of his sweatpants as he approached the bed.

“God,” Rick sighed as Negan settled his body against him, “you feel so good.”

“Careful,” Negan breathed, the corner of his mouth inching upwards in a smirk, “you’re only gonna make my ego bigger and harder.”

Rick laughed quietly, reaching down and palming him through his briefs. “That’s what you’re calling it now?”

Negan bent and kissed him, slow and wet and lingering. Rick arched into it, tangling his legs around Negan’s. He _did_ feel good, with his warm weight pressing him into the soft mattress and his hands roaming his body to rub and knead and whatever tenseness they found. Rick sighed into their kiss, melting under his lover’s touch. His eyes were growing heavy, but his cock was awake and throbbing between his legs.

“You need to sleep,” Negan chuckled against his lips.

“Not yet,” Rick whispered, “not yet.” He wriggled around in Negan’s arms and pushed his briefs over his hips. “Come on, honey,” he murmured, nestling his cheek against the pillow beneath him. “Please.”

Negan sighed shakily above him, his hand stroking the tender flesh at the inside of his thigh. “You don’t have to say ‘please,’” he breathed.

It was calm. Negan stroked him open unhurriedly, pressing soft, damp kisses on his warm, bare skin. He slipped a hand beneath Rick’s knee and nudged it up to his chest as he lay curled on his side, eyes half-closed as he drifted in a blissful haze. He moaned faintly as Negan eased inside him, his arms winding around him from behind and sheltering him.

 _Oh, god,_ he needed this. He needed to be wrapped in him, filled with him, lost in him.

“Ooh, cowboy,” Negan whispered in his ear as he rocked slowly in and out again, “you like that? You know I aim to please, sweetheart.”

Rick felt a smile tug his lips, and Negan chuckled behind him and kissed his flushed cheek. Rick’s eyes drifted shut as he gave himself over to the crescendo of pleasure building slowly and sweetly inside of him.

“You’re gonna come for me,” - a soft growl spoken just at his ear - “and then you’re gonna fall into a deep-ass sleep, baby, it’s gonna be some Sleeping Beauty shit. And it’s gonna feel so, so fucking good. You’re gonna feel so- so fucking _safe_ , baby, you’re safe, you’re safe now…”

Rick realized with a start that he believed him, and on the heels of that realization came his release, spreading slow and shivery-sweet through him. It melted everything it passed through as it crested in him - melted muscle and bone and sinew - and his consciousness followed, dissolving and drifting away into serenity.

—

Negan rested with his eyes closed and his damp forehead pressed against the soft curls at the back of Rick’s head. He didn’t move a muscle until he was absolutely sure the other man was sleeping, feeling the gentle rise and fall of his chest against his palm. He kissed the back of his head and had to resist the urge to keep kissing and kissing.

 _Don’t wake him back up, numb nuts,_ he scolded himself, and he carefully slid his softening length out of him. He bit his lip at the warm rush of come that accompanied that. His cock gave a little throb of renewed interest, and he groaned internally. _No, you little asshole,_ he thought irritably as he carefully slipped out of bed. He padded to the bathroom and dampened a washcloth in warm water. He was exquisitely careful as he cleaned Rick up, flinching at every hitched breath and sleepy sigh. He tucked the covers around him snugly when he was done, gratified when Rick hardly stirred.

“That’s a job well done, little Negan,” he murmured to himself as he re-entered the bathroom. He showered quickly, trying to talk himself out of climbing back into bed beside Rick and dozing off wrapped around his lover’s body. As much as he wanted to, there was an ass-load of things to be done. He needed to call Jim about manning the garage on his own come Monday - there was no way he was sending Rick to the courthouse alone. The kitchen still needed cleaning after breakfast this morning. He meant to call Maggie - she was planning on telling Beth about the trial this morning, same as Rick had done with Carl, and she had been worried about how it would go. He had hoped the girls would come over for dinner so that all of them could sit with their shared grief. Rick desperately needed the comfort and connection, but he wouldn’t seek it out for himself - he turned inwards in his suffering. Negan understood that well enough now.

He was still lost in thought when he padded downstairs, dressed in sweatpants and nothing else, to begin cleaning up the kitchen. The doorbell had him flinching and hurrying to the door in irritation. If that fucking woken Rick up…

It was Shane, standing outside the front door with his hands shoved deep in his pockets and his face lined with a frown. Of course it was Shane.

“He’s asleep,” Negan said sharply when he yanked open the door. He had every intention of telling him to fuck off, but the man’s face looked so morose and lost, like a flea-bitten street dog huddled in a corner, that he hesitated. Maybe it was the warm glow that making love to Rick had stoked in him. Or maybe it was the memory of Shane coming down to the garage to tell him that Rick needed him - the man had done that much. “You want some coffee? I was just putting a pot on.”

Shane stared at him for a moment before he nodded jerkily. “Yeah.”

Negan tossed his head towards the interior of the house, and Shane slid past him, head still hung low. They sat across each other at the kitchen table in silence while the coffee pot burbled away.

“He okay?” Shane asked quietly, picking at the cuffs of his light jacket.

Negan hesitated. “He’s…getting there,” he said finally. “He’s a little better now that he told Carl all about it. He was worried about how the kid would take it, but he was a real bad-ass about it. That cheered him up a little. He’s just catching up on some sleep now. Hardly slept at all last night.” Negan stood and walked over to the cupboard, pulling a couple mugs down.

“He knows about Monday?”

“Yeah. Sheriff came by with her girl. Took the kids to the movies. You need to go, too, I guess, and meet that prosecutor?”

“Yeah,” Shane said bitterly. “Me, Leon, everyone. All of us who didn’t die, anyway.”

Negan poured two steaming cups of black coffee, frowning a little. “Were they close? Rick and the one who got shot?”

Shane sat back in his seat. “Yeah,” he said with a sigh. “Tyreese was a…a real stand-up guy. Damn good cop. Damn good man. He and Rick had a lot in common. He had been seeing this girl, was just about ready to pop the question. All that man wanted was a goddamn Kodak-moment family. You know? Wife, kids, dog, the whole fuckin’ nine-yards. He shoulda had it. This ain’t the kinda town that cops get fuckin’ blown away in. All the shit that happened - it was like a nightmare. Hits kept comin’, one after the other. And Rick…he was down for the count, man. There was a time they wasn’t sure he was gonna wake up.”

A chill shimmied down Negan’s spine at the words. What was he doing around that time when Rick Grimes was lying in a hospital bed, his future uncertain? Fucking around and boozing as usual, he guessed. He felt a strange guilt at that - fucking around and boozing is what he had done when Lucille was in her hospital bed, too, all those years ago. He didn’t know he loved the man down in Georgia yet, of course, but still, the thought of it sat uneasily in his gut. Negan set a mug of coffee by Shane and nodded at it. “You want some Jack in that?”

“Hell, yeah,” Shane sighed, burying his face in his hands.

Negan rummaged in the back of the cupboard for a moment before producing a half-full bottle. He poured a generous dollop into Shane’s mug before adding a splash to his own.

Shane took a long sip, eyes faraway. “I blamed him,” he muttered, with the air of a man making a shameful confession. “I _blamed_ him.”

Negan held his tongue for once, thinking of the man peacefully sleeping upstairs. The last thing he wanted was for Rick to come down and find him them fighting.

“But you know what? I got it eventually. I put it together.” He took another long sip. “It was my goddamn fault, not his. I had a bad feeling about that guy, that fuckin’ rat bastard, the minute I laid eyes on him. And when Rick got the assault charge dropped, I…I fucking took it personally, you know? Got pissed at him for not listening to me, like we were twelve years old again.” Shane scoffed bitterly. “What I should have fucking done was listen to my gut. Should have stuck close to him. Should have been there-“ Shane choked off, eyes flooding and lips twisting.

Negan hit the end of his tenuous control over his mouth. “In all this time, you haven’t fucking told him that? That it wasn’t his fault? That you should’ve tried a little fucking harder for him?” He kept his voice quiet, but the words were no less venomous spoken softly than they would have been shouted at him.

Shane gave an unsteady laugh. “Nah, boy. I’m a piece of shit. Never had the fuckin’ guts for it.”

Negan scoffed and angled his head. “You came here to tell him that? That you got no guts?”

“No,” Shane sighed. “Just came to check on ‘im. That’s all.”

Negan watched him silently as he drank down his coffee. “He’s all right,” he said quietly. “Or he will be, when this shit is over and done with. You ever find out how that fucking maniac got his number?”

“He called the station pretending to be from the school,” Shane said darkly. “Stupid bitch that picked up the call fell for it. Jacqui was out that day. She would’ve seen right through that weak shit.” Shane shook his head, his brows drawing together. “That pile of shit’s defense is gonna say he’s crazy.” Shane gave a bitter scoff. “Crazy my ass. That fucking prick is rotten, not crazy. We got a guy that comes down to the station ever couple weeks - doctor. Psychiatrist. Forensics guy, you know? Does that profiling shit. He looked into this guy. They used to call him ‘the Governor’ over at the bank he worked at, and it ain’t because they liked him. He was the kind of middle-management wannabe big dick on the block who made everyone’s life hell. Doc said this asshole ‘displayed anti-social traits’ way before this shit went down. Said when his kid died, it showed him he couldn’t control shit the way he wanted, and that scrambled his fucking eggs. He twisted everything up in his head to make it Rick’s fault. But he still knew what he was doing. He never missed any of his court-ordered monitoring appointments. He bought a gun. He fucking stalked Rick and Carl for days. He knew exactly what he was fucking doing, and that’s why he tried to get the fuck out of Dodge after he did it and killed everyone who got in his way. No way a bullshit insanity defense gets this prick off.” Shane tipped his chair back and grunted. “‘Anti-social traits.’ Fucking fancy-ass way of saying someone’s a piece of shit.”

“What if a bullshit insanity defense does get this prick off?”

Shane brought his chair down hard and glared.

Negan gritted his teeth at the noise, thinking again of Rick sleeping upstairs and trying to control his rising irritation. “Fucking cool it, jackass. Excuse the fuck out of me for having a few doubts about the system. You’re a fucking cop, you should fucking know that shit happens. So what happens if shit happens? Where does he go?”

“Back to a hospital,” Shane muttered, drooping a little in his seat. “And then it would be up to the docs when to let him out.” He drank off the rest of his coffee. “If that happens, and he ends up a free man, I’m going to kill him myself.” He glared at Negan again, as if daring him to protest.

Negan tipped his head back and studied him. “Tell you what, Shane-boy,” he said with a smile that didn’t reach his eyes, “if he ends up a free man, I’ll help you fucking kill him.”

Shane blinked at him, and then his shoulders slumped and his gaze fell. “No,” he said, shaking his head. “You can’t. He needs you.”

Negan felt surprise crest in him at that, but he kept his face neutral as Shane pushed his now-empty mug away.

“Tell ‘im I came by, all right?” he grunted, his eyes still on the table. He sounded subdued, wistful.

Negan watched him quietly for a moment. _Rick still calls him his best friend,_ he told himself. He had no fucking clue why after all the horrible shit he had put him through, but it wasn’t fucking up to him. “Why don’t you come by again around dinner time? I was gonna call Maggie and see if she would bring the family over. I think Rick would…would like it. Having everyone together.”

He saw the shock in the man’s dark eyes as they lifted back to his, and he answered it with a wry smile.

“He cares about you, asshole,” Negan said with a shrug. “You and I, we already had our little talk. You know what happens if you hurt him again.”

Anger flashed up in Shane’s expression, but only for a moment. It melted into grief, and he hung his head. “I’ll bring some beers,” he muttered before pushing his chair back and standing.

Negan saw him out, marveling at the the rare diplomacy he had managed. _Ricky’s smoothing out my edges,_ he thought wryly to himself. Not all of them, certainly, but enough to make a difference.

—

Negan heard a car rumble in the driveway, and he checked the time on the oven. It was about time for Carl to come home, so he anticipated the front door swinging open. Rick was showering upstairs, and Negan had been setting the table for dinner. He frowned when the front door remained shut, and he wiped his hands on a kitchen towel before heading outside.

Carl was sitting on the front step, his head bent and his hair forming a dark, silky curtain. Negan didn’t need to see his hidden face to know he was crying. _Fuck_ , the thought, a chill of dismay sliding through him. _How the fuck do I deal with this?_ He hesitated for a moment before sitting down beside the boy, stretching his long legs out.

“It’s okay, kid,” he said quietly. “You were brave all fucking day. You had to let it out sometime.”

“I hate it,” Carl said, and his voice was choked and trembly with tears. “I hate remembering it so much. I hate how scared I was. I thought he was gonna _die_.” His voice broke childishly on the last word, and he buried his face in his hands.

Negan put an arm around his shoulders and squeezed. “It’s not fucking fair,” he said quietly. “The shit you’ve been through. What else is there to say? It’s not fucking fair at all.”

Carl snuffled into his hands and then scrubbed at his face with his sleeve. “I’m okay,” he muttered.

“Sure you are, kid. But that doesn’t mean you’ve gotta be John fucking Wayne about this shit all the time. It’s okay to be freaked out.”

“I don’t want Dad to worry about me,” Carl sighed.

“Kid, I’ve got a fucking newsflash for you: he’s worried. He’s always gonna be worried. He’s your goddamned _father_. He loves you kids so fucking much.”

Carl drew his legs up and wrapped his arms around his knees, huddling himself into a ball. “Are you sticking around or what?” he asked after quiet moment.

Somehow, the question wasn’t a surprise. Negan felt he had been waiting for it all along. “Yeah, I’m sticking around,” he said softly. “That okay by you?”

Carl turned to look up at him with his single tear-reddened eye. “Yeah. It’s cool.”

Negan grinned at him and scrubbed his knuckles through his hair briefly while Carl groaned in protest and shifted away. “Kid,” Negan said, growing serious again, “you need to sit down and talk to your daddy about all this shit. He’s every bit as freaked out about what could’ve happened to you as you are about what could’ve happened to him. You gotta help each other, you know?”

“We’re not big talkers,” Carl said drily, and Negan couldn’t help but tip his head back and bellow out a laugh to the cloudless blue sky.

“What’s so funny?” Rick’s soft drawl came from behind them.

Negan twisted around with a smile. Rick was standing in the open doorway, a soft expression in his eyes as he took in the two of them. Negan motioned for Rick to come and take his place on the steps. “Carl will tell you,” he said as he pushed to his feet. “I’ve got meatballs in the damn oven that need my tender loving care.” He pressed a kiss to Rick’s cheek as he passed by him on this way back through the front door.

—

Rick was shocked at what Negan had managed to accomplish with just a few hours to cook and a few phone calls.

The house was absolutely overflowing with friends and family. Hershel Greene, whose bad leg kept him largely confined to the farm, had come along with his daughters. Maggie’s boyfriend, Glenn, was there. Sasha had come along with Beth. Carol and Sophia returned. Negan had even managed to get Leon Bassett down to the house, and Rick didn’t know what shocked him more: that he had convinced the now-reclusive man to show up or that it was Shane who brought him, trailing behind the thin, sandy-haired man with a case of beer. His shock only deepened when Shane tossed a not-unfriendly nod in Negan’s direction.

“What?” Negan had asked quietly when they retreated to the kitchen for a quiet moment. “You wanted Shane here, didn’t you?”

“Yes,” Rick admitted, looking down. “But I thought that you…”

Negan silenced him with a brief kiss and a shake of his head. “Don’t get too far into your pretty head, baby,” he murmured, smiling faintly. “It’s a party.”

And it was, although it was a strange, surreal kind of party. There was no question about the nature of the gathering - the atmosphere was hushed and almost funereal, but Rick felt his spirits lift a little more with every touch and embrace from his assembled loved ones.

He marveled at Negan. He ran the gathering with ease, his charm on full display. Beth had been wan and quiet on arrival, and her lovely eyes had tell-tale red rims. Negan had picked her up by the waist and swung her around, and she was giggling when he put her back on her feet. She wrapped her slim arms around his waist and hugged tight as Hershel and Maggie looked on with twin smiles.

He marveled, but he couldn’t be surprised. Not anymore, anyway. Back when they first met, he had thought of Negan as a lone wolf - aloof and daring and satisfied, a man who enjoyed the thrill of the chase. He had chased Rick, and he had caught him, and Rick had feared that would be the end of it. He feared Negan would leave him in favor of the freedom of the life he had been leading - a life of riding a motorcycle to the Grand Canyon on a whim, of outpacing a tornado, of lying in a different bed every night.

He knew better now.

As their lives grew entwined, more and more of Negan’s inner life had been laid bare to him. Rick knew that he and Lucille had planned for children. He knew how envious he had been of his friends as their families grew while he remained lonely and grieving. He knew how resigned he had grown to the thought that he would die alone and unloved, just biding his time with meaningless sex until he followed Lucille into the grave. He knew that a family was something that he both longed for and sometimes feared, something he had thought to be as out of his reach as his first love.

Rick watched Negan as he made animated conversation with Glenn, Judith clinging to his neck. His heart felt like it was expanding in his chest, like the outward flare of a star gone supernova, and suddenly his eyes were wet. He felt a hand on the small of his back, and he blinked rapidly, trying to get himself under control.

It was Maggie, her gaze knowing as it softly locked with his. “Look at them,” she said softly. “Our guys. I guess we should keep them.”

Rick chuckled softly, reaching up to rub away the tears that had gathered in his eyes. When he lowered his hands, Negan was watching him from across the room, his smile dazzling. Rick slipped an arm around Maggie’s waist and felt an answering smile rise to his lips.

—

“Was it too much?”

Rick looked up from where he had been sitting cross-legged on the bed, dressed in loose-fitting sweatpants and nothing else. Negan had just emerged from the shower, and he stood in front of Rick with a towel slung low around his waist. His eyes were soft and earnest as they rested on Rick, but Rick found it difficult to focus on his eyes with the distracting sight of the bare expanse of his skin, still dappled with drops of water from the shower.

He lifted his gaze up to Negan’s face with some difficulty, and the other man smirked a little at him, although his eyes stayed soft.

“No, honey,” Rick said quietly. “It was perfect. It was just what I needed. To be with everyone. To feel what we got for each other, just like Hershel said.”

Hershel Greene had stood up with the calm assurance of a man used to making speeches, wincing a little as his bad leg pained him, just as everyone was settling in to eat. Rick had felt his chest warm up with affection before the elderly man had even begun.

“All of us here have have been touched by tragedy. All of us here have lost those beloved to us.” Hershel touched the gold ring on his left finger and took in his daughters with his solemn gaze. “But although we have lost, our power to love remains. It binds us together. It uplifts our spirits. It gives us the strength to go on in the face of hardship and cruelty. And through giving and receiving love, we feel the joyful presence of those who have gone before us. Let us look around this table and feel love’s power.”

Negan had taken his hand gently as Hershel had been speaking, and Rick squeezed it, feeling his throat ache with emotion yet again. When Hershel finished and soft conversation resumed around them, Negan bent his head to Rick’s ear. “You wanna feel love’s power later tonight, baby?” he whispered, and he snickered when Rick pinched his thigh hard in reproof, his face heating up immediately.

“Old man gives a hell of a sermon,” Negan said as he sank onto the bed beside him. “I mean it. It was…fucking nice. What he said.” He lifted a hand to brush at his collarbone and the name inked there in looping, elegant script.

Rick watched him settle in beside him, stretching his long legs on the soft sheets “What about you?” he asked softly. “Is it…is it too much for you?”

“What?” Negan asked blankly. “Dinner? Hell, no, Rick. I like your-“

“No,” Rick broke in, “not dinner. I mean…” he trailed off, and then he laughed a little unsteadily. “I mean everything. Me. All of this. It’s all so goddamned crazy.” His voice rasped a little in his throat from the gathering threat of tears. “The trial…there’s gonna be reporters, and…hell. I know you didn’t sign up for this, Negan.”

Negan’s heart sank down to his stomach and sat heavily there. “Oh, honey,” he said sadly. He reached over and tangled a hand in his curls. “Honey. You really think I’m looking for a way out of this? You think any of that shit could scare me away? From _you_? Christ, baby. I love you. Please don’t fucking…don’t fucking doubt me on this. Okay? I’m here. I’m not fucking going anywhere. I’m with you.”

Rick lifted his eyes, and they glistened in the lamplight.

Negan leaned forward and kissed his soft lips once before pulling back and gazing at him solemnly. “I’ve got some shit on my ledger that could scare someone away,” he said very quietly. “How about it, baby? You pull my rap sheet yet?”

His answer was in the red flush that immediately spread across Rick’s face. “Sorry,” he said sheepishly, his voice still rough with the effort of containing his tears. “It ain’t right. I know that. I just-“

“Shit, Rick, I get it. I figured you did. Of course you did. You’ve got fucking kids to think about. If you’ve seen it, you know what I mean.”

Rick shook his head. “I looked at the dates,” he said softly, “and I figured. You had just lost her. Got drunk and got into a few bar fights, huh? I get it.”

“That was just for starters,” Negan said wryly. “A lot of my greatest hits didn’t make the record. You know how it is. I had friends in low places, and they didn’t want their shit settled by cops. I was rough, Rick. And it’s not like I was a goddamned saint before it all happened, either. I was too young and too much of a fucking idiot. The fighting, the booze, that’s not even the worst fucking part. I fucked around on her a little, you know. I told myself it was nothing serious, so it didn’t matter. And it wasn’t serious, but that doesn’t mean it didn’t fucking matter.” Negan paused, eyes reddening. “Jesus Christ. If I could go back in time and beat my own ass, I would. She deserved so much better, but she didn’t get it, and then she died.” He rubbed his face hard and then flung out both his hands. “So that’s my shit. That scare you?”

“No,” Rick said quietly. “It doesn’t. That’s not who you are anymore.”

Negan laughed bitterly, a single tear tracking down his cheek and disappearing into the dark stubble there. “You sure, darlin’?”

Rick gazed at him sadly for a moment before closing the distance between them and tucking himself into his arms. “I’m sure,” he whispered. “Of course I’m sure. I know how you been with me. That’s the man I know. You think I was a perfect husband to Lori? I wasn’t. I made mistakes, too.”

“Not like me, sweetheart.”

Rick shrugged. “Maybe not. But I hurt her. I kept things from her. Things I was thinking. Feeling. Pieces of me. She knew it, and it drove her crazy. And it made her feel lonely. I-I never figured out how to do better when I was with her. I don’t even know why I do it, and I still do it. I shouldn’t have kept all this from you for so long. This thing about Blake. You asked me a dozen times about the scars and about Carl. I had so many chances to tell you. I don’t even know why I didn’t.”

“Rick-“

“I’m trying to do better, Negan. I am. I don’t want to make the same mistakes again.”

“Neither do I,” Negan murmured, smoothing back his curls.

Rick lay quietly against him for a moment. “You’re not goin’ anywhere?”

“Hell, no. Where would I go?”

Rick licked his lips and let the last little bit of stubborn and poisonous insecurity inside of him out into the light. “Back to Virginia,” he ventured softly.

Negan clicked his tongue against his teeth and huffed a laugh. “Baby, I am not fucking going back to Virginia. You know why?”

Rick shook his head a little.

“Because I got it real fucking bad for a local boy. What do you think about that, Georgia?”

Rick looked up. He felt drunk on the emotions of the day, and that emboldened him. His caution, his defenses - he threw them aside. “I love you,” Rick said, raw honesty in his ardent gaze, “I love you so goddamned much, baby, and I want you to stay right here. I never want to have to drive to a damn motel to see you again, Negan. Please be mine. I want you to be all mine.” He was on his back so suddenly it was disorienting, and Negan was looming over him, the wolf again, but _his_ wolf.

“I _am_ all yours, Rick,” Negan almost purred, the velvet of his voice a contrast to the wild hunger that had flared in his eyes. “All yours, darlin’. Look at me and tell me you believe me. I can’t stand you doubting it.” He leaned forward and pressed a slow, reverent kiss to the center of Rick’s chest.

“I believe you, Virginia,” Rick whispered, and hadn’t he heard that wolves were meant to live in packs? Didn’t they mate for life? He wound his legs around Negan’s waist as the other man flashed his teeth at him. “I believe you.”


	10. Honey, Make This Easy

“You miss them already, don’t you?”

Rick ducked his head a little and smiled, drumming his fingers on the steering wheel. “Yeah, I do.”

They had just dropped off Carl and Judith at their grandparents’ home. Lori’s parents had wanted the kids for the entire summer, just like last year, but Rick had put his foot down and negotiated a three-week stay. It hadn’t been pleasant. Lori’s mother had plenty to say about how _the children need some time away after that horrible ordeal with the trial and don’t you think it’s best for them to have some stability?_ Rick was surprised at how much easier it was to keep his head these days - the needling insinuations just washed over him with no real perturbation of the vast calm that had overtaken him in the wake of the trial, after Philip Blake had been found guilty on all charges and sentenced to sixty years.

It had been a horrible ordeal. Facing Blake had felt dangerous, even in the secure confines of the courtroom. Every time Rick looked towards the defense, Blake’s milky blue eyes were fixed on him with brooding resentment, as if he were plotting how he could break free and finish what he had started. As Rick’s testimony wore on, however, the fear and unease that had roiled his gut practically from the moment he learned the trial was imminent cooled to a simmering anger. Anger was far, far more manageable than fear.

 _He can’t touch us_ , Carl had said, and Rick began to believe it when he watched the defense attorney, a startlingly beautiful woman who commanded the courtroom with a regal ease, slice the defense’s case to ribbons.

 _I’m going to put him away,_ was the first thing she had said to him when they met.

 _Thank you, counselor,_ he had replied as his hand clasped hers.

She flashed a brilliant smile at him that softened and sweetened her imposing beauty. _Call me Michonne._

And so his anger melted his fear, but it did little for the grief that reliving those horrible days through his testimony awoke in him.

 _How do you do it?_ Morgan Jones had asked him when he ran into the man in the courthouse. The deep lines grief had etched into his face had made him seem a decade older. _Stay here? With your wife gone, with all the memories? I couldn’t get out fast enough._

 _My family is here,_ Rick had replied. _All the people who pulled me through it. Helped me survive it. And I…still feel her. In the places we used to be together. Sometimes it just hurts, but sometimes I feel close to her again._

And it was family, again, that buoyed him through the four full weeks the trial spanned. They spent the bulk of those weeks at the Greene farm at Hershel’s insistence. He took Rick out to the gardens daily, and Rick found peace working in the dirt and sunshine alongside the man who had become a second father to him.

They had to weather a few crises together. Sasha went missing one night only to be found by Negan and Maggie in the middle of a drunken brawl in a bar a county over. Carl punched an older teen at school square in the mouth for some smart-ass remark about the trial. Beth put down about half a bottle of Kentucky bourbon by herself and proceeded to spend the rest of the night miserably vomiting the contents of her stomach and then some.

And predictably, the trial attracted the morbid fascination of local and state news media. Rick was deluged in interview requests, all of which he refused. Negan chased a few of the less respectful and more persistent journalists and their camera crews off their property with a baseball bat he had outfitted according to Lucille’s long-ago specifications. The aggressive defense bothered Rick _not at all_ given that Negan had found one crew trying to peer into Carl’s bedroom window. The sheriff’s department issued warnings for trespassing and looked the other way when a few complaints came in about the barbed-wire bat meeting a camera or two. But the attention evaporated when the story concluded, and the media that had descended on King County swarmed to the next tragedy.

It had been five months ago, and as painful as it had been, the wound was closing. Slowly and surely.

Negan reached over and rubbed his palm over Rick’s thigh. “You’re sweet, papa bear. But I’m happy we’re gonna get some alone time.”

“Negan,” Rick protested with a laugh as his hand crept higher, “I’m driving.”

“Not for long,” Negan returned with a gleaming smirk. “Our exit’s up here.”

“Looks different from a tow truck,” Rick said drily as he pulled into the exit lane.

—

Negan was surprised to feel a twinge of nostalgia at the sight of the new and improved Savior Motors sign. Simon had stepped into his place at the business when he made his relocation to Georgia - and his place at Jim’s garage - permanent. Simon wasn’t half bad at the business side of things, but he was a showman at heart, and he had gotten to work almost immediately on sprucing the place up with Bud’s grudging blessing. New paint, new sign, new sitting area with bougie-looking leather couches and vintage car show posters - Simon called him every other day bursting with excitement about some new touch he was putting on the old place.

He was standing outside now, waving his arms wildly in recognition as Rick and Negan pulled into the lot. “Negan and Mrs. Negan!” he hollered, grinning ear to ear. “Well, slap my ass and call me a newborn baby! Boys, look who finally came for a goddamn visit!”

“Mrs. Negan?” Rick echoed wryly.

Negan chuckled as he climbed out the car. He was engulfed in a back-slapping hug the moment he emerged.

“Come inside, man, and prepare to be amazed.”

Negan rolled his eyes. “You keep texting me color swatches, idiot, what the fuck to I have to be amazed about? I know all about how you’ve been going full HGTV in there.”

“Man, you don’t even fucking know. The pièce de résistance awaits.”

“You’re not gonna believe it,” a gruff voice broke in darkly. Negan turned to find Bud standing a few feet away, shaking his head. “Don’t know why the hell I let this lunatic talk me into his half-cocked schemes -“

“My schemes are one-hundred percent full cock,” Simon proclaimed just as Rick rounded the front of the car. “Mrs. Negan believes in me, don’t you?”

“I - “

Simon wrapped an arm around Rick’s waist and ushered him into the garage and towards the front office before he could get another word out.

Negan shot an amused look over to Bud. “The hell’s he so hyped about?”

“You’ll see,” Bud said, scratching his chin. He slapped Negan’s shoulder and pushed him forward to follow Simon’s path.

He was heading towards the sitting area, and he turned with a dramatic flourish of his arm. “Behold my fucking brilliance. _Cappuccino maker_.”

“That’s…real nice, Simon,” Rick said dutifully, eyeing the enormous, gleaming machine.

“This is gonna be our thing,” Simon crowed. “This is what sets us apart. What other garage around here has a cappuccino maker?”

“Yeah, sure, I’m gonna change the goddamn slogan,” Bud grunted. “Savior Motors, have a goddamn cappuccino while we rotate your tires.”

“Needs work a little work, but I don’t hate it,” Negan laughed.

Simon beamed and turned to Rick. “Hey, Mrs. Negan, you want a cappuccino?”

Rick blinked at him. “Me? I-“

“Of course you do!” Simon bustled over and busied himself with the task, whistling a loud, shrill rendition of _That’s Amore_.

Negan stepped up behind Rick, putting his warm hands on his waist as he watched his friend. “Is that Mrs. Negan shit pissing you off?” he murmured in his ear. “Simon’s a professional button-pusher, but if it’s pissing you off, I’ll kick his ass for you.”

Rick chuckled and shook his head. “It don’t. Although I would have told him that it was Officer Mrs. Negan to him if I had thought of it fast enough.”

“When are you boys gettin’ hitched?” Bud had moved closer, and he was eyeing the platinum ring on Negan’s finger with a small smile.

“Sometime next spring, I think,” Rick replied a little shyly. “I didn’t want to have a big ceremony, you know - I woulda been happy just goin’ down to the county clerk’s office, but when I told my cousins that, they just about hit the roof.”

Negan grinned. “Mm-hm. They hired themselves as our wedding planners. I’m gonna get married again on a goddamn farm, Bud. How d’you like that for going country?”

“I hope you’ll be able to make it,” Rick put in. “You still got your dress blues?”

Bud chuckled. “Haven’t dusted those off in an age. Who knows if I can squeeze into ‘em.”

“Well, you got a year to take a spin class and try a juice cleanse, old man,” Negan chirped.

Rick reached back and pinched him in reproof, as he did not infrequently. “Have a little respect, Negan.”

“Respect? Negan?” Bud echoed skeptically.

“Hey, hey, running with a cop’s been good for me,” Negan protested with a swift wink at the older man. “I’m at least fifty percent less of an asshole these days.”

Bud’s lips twitched. “Well, hallelujah. Miracles can happen.”

Simon was returning with a tray of white, steaming cups on saucers. “Put this shit in your face, gentlemen.”

“Smells good, I’ll fucking give you that,” Negan said, taking a proffered cup. “Shit,” he said after a long sip, “it _is_ good.”

“It’s real good,” Rick echoed with a smile.

“Of course it is, it’s a goddamn cappuccino!” Simon set the tray down and grinned triumphantly. “See, Bud? This is the classy shit that’s gonna bring in the big bucks.”

Bud shook his head over his cup. “Whatever you say. Diner still has the best cup of joe in town.”

Simon groaned comically.

“That’s where we’re headed - gonna grab dinner and then check in across the street,” Negan said, finishing his cup in a few swallows. “We’re officially on vacation. You don’t know how goddamn hard it was to get Officer Grimes here to take a couple weeks off. He’s never seen the Virginia side of the Blue Ridge. You know, McAfee Knob, Luray, Devil’s Backbone, all that scenic shit.”

“Man, remember how we used to bike up and down the Blue Ridge Parkway all the time?” Simon asked, a little wistfully. “That was the shit. You should fucking do it. Hell, you can take my bike. You don’t mind bein’ the back warmer, right, Ricky?”

Rick was shaking his head vigorously. “On a highway? Hell, no. Car’s fine for me.”

“You don’t know what you’re missing, man,” Simon intoned solemnly. “Break free of the cage.”

“I keep telling him,” Negan grinned, pressing his cheek to the chestnut hair.

“And I keep telling him I like having two arms and two legs.”

“Don’t tire yourself out talking too much sense to these two chuckleheads, Rick,” Bud said, hitching up his jeans with an air of finality. “Negan, you come on back for a spell after dinner. We got a little business to discuss for Jim’s garage.”

“Sure,” Negan returned, a little puzzled. “See you later, old man.”

Bud saluted and headed back out towards the garage towards a pair of waiting customers.

“I gotta get going, too, man. Fucking books don’t balance themselves.” Simon strolled over and planted a wet kiss on Rick’s cheek, much to his astonishment. “Stop back in tomorrow for a cappuccino before you hit the parkway, kids.”

“You know it, man,” Negan chuckled, reaching out and bumping fists with the man as he turned to head into the front office.

“He’s one of a kind, ain’t he?” Rick said, shaking his head and wiping the dampness off his cheek.

“Thank Christ,” Negan said, “I don’t think the world could handle two. Let’s get some fucking grub.”

—

“There you are!” Olivia hustled around the front desk to wrap Negan in a tight hug, laughing delightedly. “Haven’t seen you in forever!” She turned to Rick and stuck out her hand. “Welcome back, officer.”

“Call me Rick, please.” He clasped her hand warmly. “It’s nice to see you again.”

“You guys smell like apple pie. Were you at the diner?” She eyed Negan, who had burst out laughing. “What’s so funny about that?”

“We were at the diner,” Rick said, flushing a little as he smiled, “and we did have the apple pie. It was just as good as I remembered.”

“Brought you a slice, doll,” Negan said, still chuckling. He handed over a paper bag, and Olivia beamed.

“Oh, let me grab your key.” She slid back around the desk and pulled one from the wall. “Here you go. Room 111. Enjoy your stay at the Alexandria Inn, your roadside haven.”

As they left the front office, Rick murmured, “Room 111, huh? You’re a goddamn sap, you know that? _Sent-i-mental_.”

Negan reached down and gave his ass a quick squeeze. “I’ll show you sentimental as soon as I get back from the garage. You head on up and make yourself comfortable, baby, because I’m gonna pound you with every last inch of my sentimentality.”

“That’s beautiful, honey. You’re a real poet.”

Negan caught him and kissed him hungrily. “To quote a little motherfucking Shakespeare, you make me so goddamn hard when you give me that sass, sweet cheeks. What? I’m paraphrasing.”

Rick laughed and kissed him again. “It’s gettin’ chilly. Can I have your jacket, Shakespeare?”

Negan slid it off and draped it over his shoulders. “I’ll be up soon, honey,” he said softly. “I know you’re tired from the drive.”

“Not too tired for your sentimentality,” Rick returned, mouth quirking into a sly smile. He kissed Negan’s cheek and turned, walking down the row of doors.

Negan watched him, trying to will his swelling erection back down. Never one to let someone else have the last word, he called, “Try not to get started without me, Georgia!”

Rick’s muffled laughter reached him, and he grinned in satisfaction before turning to head back to the garage.

—

Bud was reclining in his ratty old leather chair with a can of beer in his hand, and he nodded at the remainder of a six-pack sitting on the corner of his desk. “Help yourself.”

“Well, shit, Bud. I don’t remember you being this generous when it comes to beer.” Negan grinned at him as he popped a can from the six-pack, settling into the chair opposite the older man.

“Well, some crazy asshole keeps sending me a few goddamn cases every month.”

Negan chuckled. “The crazy asshole is trying to replace what he drank. Besides, I…shit.” Negan rubbed his jaw, his expression growing serious. “I feel like you fucking introduced me and Rick. You’re the one that made me go work on his car, and then…you’re not gonna fucking tell me sending me to work with Jim was just a coincidence. You knew we were seeing each other.”

“I seem to remember you getting your jock in a twist about me playing Cupid.”

“Fully untwisted, you ancient fuck,” Negan said affectionately. “I owe you a hell of a lot more than a few cases of beer. I never thought…well, you know. Never thought I’d fall in love again. Thought I was done after Lucille.”

Bud turned the can around in his hands slowly. “I’m proud of you, son,” he said, his tone soft and subdued.

“For what?”

“For not goin’ down the path you were fixin’ to go down after Lucy passed,” he said plainly. “For turning your shit around. For drying out and straightening up. Now look at you. You’ve got a damn fine family. You’re running a business. You did good, kid. You did real good.”

“That’s all thanks to you, too, Bud,” Negan said quietly. “You’re the one that gave me the chance. Pretty much took me in. If you hadn’t - I don’t know where I’d be. That’s the fucking truth.”

Bud reached out and patted his forearm jerkily, mouth pressed in a thin and faintly trembling line. He cleared his throat. “You did good,” he said again, and he took a long swallow of beer.

Negan grinned. “I fucking did, didn’t I?” He popped the tab on his can and took a few thirsty gulps. “What’s this business shit we have to handle?”

Bud rubbed his mouth on the back of his sleeve and opened a drawer, pulling out a plain file folder. He tossed it over to Negan. “Need your John Hancock on that.”

Negan flipped it over curiously and scanned it. “What is this?” he asked slowly. “This…you’re…”

“I’m signing over my controlling interest in Jim’s garage to you. You and Jim will be partners. I kept a little slice of the profits, mind, but the lion’s share is yours. Consider it a wedding present, if you want. Better than a toaster, I guess.”

“Bud,” Negan said, throat tightening, “you can’t fucking do this. You’re the one that put up the money -“

“I remember, asshole, I ain’t senile yet. And like hell I can’t do it. You’re the one that’s down there busting your ass everyday to run the place. It’s turning a hell of a profit, thanks to you. Who’s this new guy you got fixing bikes, anyway? Heard Axel’s sending the complicated antique shit over to you now because you got yourself a savant.”

“That’s Daryl Dixon. One of Rick’s - oh, shit, Bud, don’t change the damn subject. This is too fucking much. You can’t just _hand_ me the business.”

“Of course I can, Negan, because it was all gonna be yours someday, anyway. Just sign the papers and stop making a damn fuss.”

Negan was silent for a long moment, his head bowed. “My old man died when I was just a kid,” he began, and suddenly he couldn’t go on.

“I know, son,” Bud replied, voice thick. “Now sign the damn papers.”

—

The motel room was dark when Negan opened the door to Room 111. He could barely make out Rick lying on the bed, and for a moment, Negan was sure he was asleep. Then he rose up to his forearms and turned his head. Negan shut the door behind him and flicked the wall switch, and the two bedside lamps cast their warm glow over the scene.

Rick was lying sprawled on his belly on the crisp white sheets of the hotel bed, his thighs parted invitingly. He was still wearing Negan’s jacket, but only Negan’s jacket, and it draped coyly over the top of the twin swells of his ass. He watched Negan, a flush sitting on his cheeks. The lamplight kissed him with gold, from the expanse of bare skin, ankle to hip, to the soft highlights in his curling hair.

“Look at you,” Negan rumbled from the doorway. “Giving me that innocent look. No fucking way, baby. You’re not fooling me. You know exactly what you’re doing with my jacket on and your sweet ass in the air.”

“I’m cold,” Rick said with a shrug, a smile dancing around the corners of his mouth. His hair was still damp from the shower, and a few wet curls clung to his forehead. “Guess I turned the air up a little too much.”

Negan advanced on him with a glint in his hazel eyes. “Cold, huh? Need me to warm you up?”

“Yes,” Rick whispered, “please.”

Negan gave a pleased hum that rumbled through his chest like a purr as he crawled slowly up the bed, dipping his head to press kisses up the backs of Rick’s calves, his thighs, and finally to the taut flesh of his backside.

Rick muffled a laugh into the pillow as Negan’s stubble tickled his sensitive flesh. The laugh turned into a hitching moan as Negan spread him and lapped wetly over the ring of muscle at his core.

He chuckled against the hot flesh as Rick rolled his hips back to meet him. “Sweet little Georgia peach,” Negan teased, squeezing the handfuls of flesh he held before diving back in.

Rick whimpered faintly, overwhelmed by the sensations and the intimacy both. He laid his head on his arm, and the leather sleeve felt buttery-soft and cool against his heated cheek. The scent of his lover, clinging to his jacket, filled each shaky inhale.

Negan nosed up to his low back, nibbling at the smooth skin. “You love it when I take a bite, don’t you?” he breathed, pushing the jacket up Rick’s back and baring more of him.

Rick wanted to lob something back, something witty, something that would keep up the banter between them, but he found he could only hum a faint affirmative, not trusting himself to speak with the way his throat was closing on itself.

Negan paused in his exploration, sensing something in Rick’s silence. He crawled up and laid his head on the pillow beside him, gazing into the clear blue eyes that had grown a little wet in the soft glow of the lamp.

Rick didn’t wait to be asked. “I love you,” he murmured, “and it all started here. I guess I’m feeling…sentimental.” He smiled, reaching out and smoothing a palm over Negan’s cheek.

Negan caught his hand gently, his eyes soft. “You saved me, you know,” he said quietly. At Rick’s startled look, he chuckled. “Oh, yes, you did. You saved me from the life I was headed towards, just like Bud said. Had a little heart-to-heart with the old man,” Negan clarified. He turned his head and kissed Rick’s palm. “I was lonely, and I thought I _had_ to be lonely. I thought the good part of my life was over. And then you came into the garage that day,” he went on, his expression turning mischievous, “with that tight ass and those big blue eyes…” The teasing air faded from him as quickly as it had come on, leaving solemnity behind, and Negan shook his head slowly. “I wanted to know you. And the more I knew, the more I wanted to know. Rick fucking Grimes. I knew you were fucking special right from the beginning. The part I honestly don’t fucking get is: why the fuck did you let me in?”

“Because I could tell that you cared,” Rick whispered, “even though I was a stranger. You care, Negan. That’s the man you are. You pretend not to know it sometimes, but I know it. I knew it then. And you…you’re the one that saved _me_. This past year…I don’t know how I could’ve made it through without you. I was lonely, too. I was tryin’ to do it all by myself, keeping everything buried all deep inside, and I - I don’t know if I could’ve -“

“You could’ve,” Negan soothed, bringing his hand out to rest against Rick’s bare chest, feeling the soft throb of his heart beneath his palm. “Like I said, you’re Rick fucking Grimes.”

Rick shook his head, lips trembling in a smile. “Don’t say that. I don’t even want to think about what it would’ve been like.”

Negan sighed and shifted closer, curling an arm around Rick’s waist. “You don’t have to think about it, sweetheart, because I’m right here. Mind if I stay?”

Rick laughed, a tear finally escaping his brimming eye. “Guess I don’t.”

Negan hummed softly, brushing the tear gently away with his fingertips. “Well, shit. We should fucking get married or something.”

“Yeah, that’s how you said it the first time,” Rick said wryly, and Negan laughed as he pulled him against his chest. Rick nestled up to him and kissed his lips softly.

“I love you, baby,” Negan murmured, “I could spend all night lying here and telling you that.”

Rick smiled fondly, a wicked sparkle lighting up his eyes. “Oh, yeah? You just wanna talk about it, huh? Thought you were going to _show_ me your sentimentality.”

Negan’s eyes gleamed with an answering mischief, and he rolled them over until he was pinning Rick to the mattress with his weight. “I’m gonna do more than show you, Georgia, that’s a fucking promise. I’m gonna put in that pretty mouth and let you taste it. Then I’m gonna let you saddle up and ride it, then I’m going to bend you over and stuff you full of it, then I’m going to flip you back over and - “

“Whoa,” Rick laughed, smoothing a hand through Negan’s dark strands and feeling heat begin to pool again between his thighs, “if you’re gonna do all that, I’ll need another cappuccino.”

Negan rose up to his knees above him, stripping off his shirt. “First things first, then,” he said, wearing his familiar gleaming, sharp-toothed smirk as he undid his belt, his movements teasingly slow and deliberate.

Rick licked his lips as he watched him with hungry eyes. He rose and guided Negan to sit back against the headboard as the man tossed his belt aside. Their lips met in a brief, firm kiss before Rick unfastened Negan’s jeans and tugged them over his hips and his lean, strong legs, leaving him bare.

Negan was still smirking, and his eyes smoldered as he reached down and palmed his heavy cock languidly.

Rick pushed the hand away, gently but firmly. “Stop,” he growled softly, “that’s mine.” He sank down, smoothing his palms over Negan’s thighs and feeling the muscles there tense in anticipation. He breathed on him for a moment, his lips a hair’s breadth away from the silky, wet tip.

“Honey,” Negan whispered, “don’t be a _dick_.”

Rick chuckled, and the soft puffs of breath had Negan rolling his hips up, seeking the contact. Rick evaded him for a little bit longer before pressing a soft kiss to the swollen head and then taking him deep into the plush heat of his mouth. He could feel the resulting groan that pulled from Negan reverberating under the hand he had splayed across his taut stomach. Fingers landed on his head, stroking gently through his hair as he bobbed slowly, humming as he went.

There was a dull clunk that could only be Negan’s head falling back against the headboard. “Fuck,” he breathed above Rick, “fuck, baby.”

Rick took him as deep as he could, wrapping his warm palm around his base and squeezing gently, pleased when Negan made a strangled noise of appreciation. He ran his tongue along the silky skin, sucking gently, and he gave a soft whine of protest when Negan pulled his heavy, leaking cock from his mouth.

Negan chuckled, running a hand through his still-damp curls. “I know how much you love swallowing it, baby, but I told you I want you in the saddle.” He licked his lips as he tugged him up, their eyes locked. “Wanna look at you,” he murmured, his gaze turning soft and reverent. He traced one sharp cheekbone with his thumb as Rick straddled him, his hands settling on broad shoulders.

“Sap,” Rick whispered.

Negan grinned as he wrapped a hand around the back of his neck and pulled him into a flowing kiss. His other hand slid under the leather jacket he still wore to rub slowly over the small of his back and then dip lower. “Right pocket,” Negan murmured against Rick’s lips.

Rick slipped his hand in and pulled out a small bottle. He chuckled softly as Negan traced his lips with his tongue. “Can always trust you to be prepared, huh?”

Negan pulled it from his hand and coated his fingers. “I’m trustworthy, baby, what can I say?” he whispered mischievously in reply. “And I’m _always_ prepared.”

Before he could come up with a retort, Rick was being gently breached. He shivered and moaned faintly at the familiar stretch of his fingers as his lover stroked him slowly from the inside. Negan dipped his head forward, swallowing the moan in a wet caress of his lips. Rick slipped his arms around his neck, anchoring himself to Negan as he panted softly into the kiss.

“How’s that, baby?” Negan murmured between kisses. He curled his fingers, and Rick gave a hoarse cry.

“Negan!” he gasped, pressing his forehead against his and rocking his hips helplessly forward. They both sucked in shuddering gaps as the motion caused their erections to bump and tease against each other.

“Mm,” Negan rumbled, “that’s right, darlin’. Say my name.” He curled his fingers again, and Rick obliged him. After what felt like an eternity of Negan advancing and retreating on that spot deep inside of him, he reached down and grasped his cock, wringing a delicious, desperate noise out of Negan.

“Try not to buck me off,” he rasped, crawling forward on his knees until they were pressed skin to shivering skin. Negan guided him with one hand on his hip and one on his firm, full cheek, tugging him gently open as Rick took the swollen head of him in with a sigh.

“Oh, _fuck_ ,” Negan said again, more dreamily this time, eyes growing unfocused and hazy.

“Right there with you, Shakespeare,” Rick whispered shakily as he bent his head, his warm lips falling on Negan’s throat and teasing the flesh there. He flexed his muscles to take him in smooth and deep, and a low groan reverberated through Negan’s chest. It seemed to pass from him to Rick like a wave rippling through water, and the vibrations against his bare skin where the jacket hung open were soothing given the hot ache between his hips and the melting weakness that had overtaken his thighs. “Fuck,” Rick echoed weakly. “Fuck, honey. I need a little help.”

Negan’s warm, large hands slid over heated skin to grasp his hips and roll them gently forward. His trapped erection slid against Negan’s taut stomach, and he gave a loud, throaty moan at the feel of it. The corner of Negan’s mouth quirked up into a smirk, and he bounced his hips. Rick bounced with him, moaning again. He felt deliciously full, and he laid his head on Negan’s shoulder and let his eyes drift shut on a blissful sigh.

Negan kissed into his damp curls, setting a slow, leisurely pace with his rocking hips and guiding hands. “Baby, you feel so goddamn good,” he whispered raggedly, “you feel like fucking _heaven_.”

Rick kissed his shoulder in wordless reply as the smoldering pleasure at his core intensified and spread under Negan’s ministrations, moving up his back and down his thighs in little licks of fire. He began to roll his hips in time with Negan in a dance that was slow and sweet and familiar.

“That’s it, cowboy,” Negan sighed.

Rick lifted his head and braced himself once more with palms on Negan’s shoulders as he began to pick up speed, gazing straight into his eyes. The soft lamplight brought out the gold glimmering in their depths. The only sound in the room was breath and skin, and Rick’s heart ached and ached in his chest. The moment, with the two of them suspended in it, was solemn and vast and filled with a love that felt as inexorable as gravity. It had drawn them to each other in a way that seemed knowing and inevitable since the beginning.

The awe of it left Rick breathless.

“I love you,” he managed in a heated whisper, fingers skimming the stubbled cheek.

“I love you, too, baby,” Negan whispered, eyes gentle but with that devilish spark in them that always heralded a - “and god _damn_ , you ride it like a porn star.”

Rick gave a strangled laugh, reaching up to give Negan’s hair a sharp, rebuking tug. “Dirty bastard,” he gasped between breaths.

“That’s right, officer,” Negan laughed as his fingers sank firmly into the flesh of Rick’s hips, bouncing him faster and harder. “Gonna dirty you up tonight. Just like I promised.”

Oh, he was close. Rick’s eyes fluttered shut as he chased his peak, his skin slick with sweat everywhere, but especially underneath that damned leather jacket. He wanted to fling it off, but he didn’t dare let go of Negan while their bodies strained and writhed together.

As if he heard him, Negan seized a handful of his collar and pulled him in roughly for a soaking, haphazardly-executed kiss. “Come for me,” he ordered. “Come on. Fucking come for me, Rick, come all over my big, swinging - “

Blessedly, Rick didn’t hear whatever string of choice adjectives Negan decided to use to describe his favorite appendage because orgasm hit him like an earthquake, shaking through every last bit of him. He felt wet heat on his belly and deep inside of him, and his only fully coherent thought was _oh, god, I forgot to put down a towel, and we’re making a goddamn mess._

He collapsed against Negan’s chest, breathing like a bellows. Warm hands wandered and caressed all over him as they always did in their after-glows together, as if Negan still couldn’t help himself and had to keep touching.

Negan slid his fingers up the inside of his thigh, catching the warm leak of his own release and leaving a trail of sticky white as his fingers wandered to Rick’s hip, fingerpainting him. “Ooh, honey,” he whispered in the flushed shell of Rick’s ear. “You need another shower.”

Rick made a wordless noise of agreement from where his face was pressed into Negan’s damp neck and began to slowly shift his limbs.

Negan tsked loudly and held him in place. “I meant after,” he whispered, and Rick could practically hear the wicked grin that was certainly sitting on his lips as he spoke. “Come on, baby. I made you a _promise_.”

—

Negan wasn’t one to make empty promises.

Several hours later, Rick was lying sprawled on his back and blissfully worn, the jacket long since torn from his body.

“Shit,” Negan groaned, his face buried in Rick’s stomach, “I wonder if Simon makes fucking late-night deliveries. I _could_ use another goddamn cappuccino.”

Rick gave a weak laugh, barely able to hang onto enough breath for it. “Why?” he asked, smiling and scratching affectionately at Negan’s scalp. “Not done yet?”

Negan chuckled quietly and looked up, his eyes soft and adoring. “I’m never gonna be done with you, Georgia.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's really hard to let this one go, but here it is. Last chapter. Thank you everyone for reading and for your lovely comments. They mean a lot. <3
> 
> A note about Bud in case anyone’s wondering who this character is and where he came from: Bud is the name that was given in the credits to the leader of the pack of biker Saviors that confront Abraham, Sasha, and Daryl on the road. I liked the character’s visual, although there wasn’t much to work with as far as other material. He’s the prototypical Savior: just very murdery with little to no provocation, and he didn’t develop as a character before he was…you know. Blown up with a rocket launcher. There’s no real father figure/mentor that’s attached to Negan in either the TV show or the comics, and the idea popped into my head that this cool old biker dude could be one. I liked the idea and the character that developed from it so much that he appeared in other fics.


End file.
